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▶ 0:18:15May good to see you are how are you doing well thank you got
▶ 0:18:52we good here we're going to we're going to you all ready yeah yeah okay all right the hearing on the committee of oversight and government reform will come to order want to welcome everyone here today without objection the chair
▶ 0:19:22May declare a recess at any time I now recognize myself for the purpose of delivering an opening statement good morning and welcome to today's full Committee hearing on Sanctuary cities with the mayors of four American cities Boston New York Chicago and Denver over the past four years the Biden Administration created the worst border crisis in American history the Democrats said that President Biden did not have the power
▶ 0:19:52or the money to stop the flow of illegal aliens at the Southwest border turn turns out the only thing President Biden did not have was Willpower in a few short weeks president Trump has proved what we all know to be true the Biden Administration could have stopped a crisis at any moment If Only They had the courage to enforce the law since president Trump assumed office illegal entries at the Southwest border have
▶ 0:20:22plummeted a 94% drop in one month under President Trump the world knows that there are consequences for unlawful entry into the United States the Border crisis was not the result of climate change a lack of resources or a failure to Grant amnesty it was the result of the last administration's deliberate Choice President Biden enacted policy starting on the
▶ 0:20:52day he assumed office to allow millions of unvetted illegal aliens to pour into the United States many of these illegal aliens have long wrap sheets that include violent crimes president Trump has an electoral mandate from the American people to deliver on his promises to secure the border and enforce the immigration laws of the United States and he has delivering on This Promise big time the Mayors here today each lead so-called Sanctuary cities and let's be clear
▶ 0:21:23these policies only create Sanctuary for criminals Sanctuary policies violate Federal immigration law by protecting criminal aliens at the expense of the American people Sanctuary cities and states refuse to cooperate with Federal immigration enforcement efforts and harbor illegal aliens they often actively work to stand in the way of President Trump's mission to protect the American people and restore Integrity to the American Immigration system and the rule
▶ 0:21:53of law Sanctuary cities forbid their officials including those in law and Public Safety roles from sharing information about illegal aliens in their cities with the federal government or turning over criminals in their custody to ice as a result Sanctuary cities released criminal illegal aliens back under the streets where they often go on to commit more crimes in Chicago for example an illegal alien who was recently arrested for killing a 63y old man
▶ 0:22:23had previously been arrested in Chicago for trying to lure a child ice lodged a detainer against the Criminal Alien but Chicago authorities released him back under the street because of the city's Reckless Sanctuary policy and now an innocent man is dead because of Chicago's refusal to follow the law these Reckless Sanctuary policies also Force Federal immigration officers to go into local communities to apprehend criminal illegal aliens
▶ 0:22:54if Sanctuary cities were to Simply communicate and work with Federal immigration authorities then federal agents could arrest criminal illegal aliens in a secure environment like a state or local jail instead they have to risk their own safety and Public Safety by having to go into uncertain dangerous circumstances just to make arrest Sanctuary cities make us all left safe and are a public safety nightmare that is why I launched an investigation into Sanctuary cities and why
▶ 0:23:24these Mayors are here today we cannot let pro-criminal alien policies and obstructionist Sanctuary cities continue to endanger American communities and the safety of federal immigration Enforcement Officers today Mayors woo Johnson Johnston and Adams will be publicly accountable for their failure to follow the law and protect the American people president Trump and his administration are taking action against Sanctuary cities and Congress must follow not by allowing a
▶ 0:23:54single penny of federal funding to go to cities and states that that prioritize criminal aliens over the American people I now yield to ranking member Conley for his opening statement thank you Mr chairman every member here today Democrats and Republicans alike agrees that violent criminals don't belong in our communities we all want our cities to be safe and have zero tolerance for violent crime irrespective of the status of the perpetrator where we
▶ 0:24:24disagree is that my Republican colleagues prefer a selective applic ation of the law to Shield the president of the United States from accountability and this Administration from the rule of law itself in America we uphold the rule of law independent from partisan politics without fear or favor betraying those convictions president Trump's department of justice has tried to force the conditional dismissal of very serious charges against one of our Witnesses
▶ 0:24:54here today in exchange for that witness's total and complete submission to the radical immigration agenda being propounded by the administration and the doj has done so over the objections of a republican acting us attorney who president Trump appointed rather than enabling a flagrant corrupt and quit proquo seven Federal prosecutors seven including Republicans resigned one of them a former clerk to Chief Justice
▶ 0:25:25John Roberts of the Supreme Court said that anyone in his position quote would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens much less elected officials in this way history is calling on us now to stand up for those laws and traditions doing so also demands an affirmation of State local sovereignty in determining the most effective ways
▶ 0:25:55to keep residents safe in compliance with federal law to deny this sovereignty is an assault on the independence of every American city across the country today Republicans have hauled before us the mayors of four major American cities to frame them as Lawless because those cities have some limits on how intrusively and aggressively their own officials can conduct Federal immigration operations responsibilities let's be clear
▶ 0:26:25the state and local laws that Republicans have issue with today are in full compliance with federal law they do not obstruct ice from carrying out its duties and they are backed by evidence demonstrating that they keep people safe and safer in counties with laws that do not honor extrajudicial civil detainers and had significantly lower levels of violent crime than counties that have them Mayors police Chiefs sheriffs and local leaders have made clear
▶ 0:26:55that the way to combat violent crime is allowing local police to do their local job of ensuring Public Safety in their own communities as they account for it commandeering them to spend limited time and resources as federal agents uh is is nonstarter and can contribute to crime and non-cooperation in immigrant communities throughout the country at this year's conservative political action
▶ 0:27:26conference bordar Tom homman said he is quote bringing hell to the city of Boston until it complies with his demands I don't know what that means Boston is my hometown and I'm glad to welcome our mayor mayor woo and her one-month old baby here today but I don't know that Boston welcomes Mr Homan or anyone else bringing hell to the city the Republican Crusade against local Independence doesn't just undermine Public Safety in our
▶ 0:27:56communities it is blatant cruel and I say inhumane and unamerican Kenya colindres her husband Wilson roilo Velasquez Cruz and their three children came to the United States in 2022 seeking Asylum a legal category of immigration after escaping violence in Honduras Wilson was granted a five-year work permit allowing him to work at a tire shop and to provide for his family here in
▶ 0:28:26the United States King G said that her husband had never been in trouble and was quote a man of God on January 26 the family of five was in church when Wilson was lured out by an ice agent waiting to arrest him despite having valid work permits the Trump Administration refused to hear his appeal and is actively deporting him Wilson was the sole bread winner for his family now Kenya has to worry about how she's going to pay the bills and take care of
▶ 0:28:56her three children on top of the fears that she and her children might be next last week in alonte California SLE a woman who was battling bone cancer tearfully watched as her mother Yolanda cried inconsolably as she was detained by Ice agents who refused to even present the detention order Yolanda was sly's sole caretaker in her struggle against cancer and has no criminal record and now zidle
▶ 0:29:26is on her own ice is also conducting massive raids in cities and towns that have led to the wrongful Detention of US citizens including Native Americans and military veterans one school district sent a letter to parents warning that ice May board school buses and demand documents children children are going to be afraid to go to school one reportedly wrote A Goodbye note to friends saying quote if ice takes me don't forget
▶ 0:29:56about me if I takes me don't forget about me from a child is that the country we want America needs immigration policies that keep everyone safe and make the country stronger and allow us to grow and fill in the skill sets we don't have if president Trump was serious about delivering those Solutions he would not be attacking the Constitution's guarantee of citizenship to children born in the United States to see our country through this period
▶ 0:30:26of Darkness we need leaders who will stand up for the rule of law and and Will Champion Public Safety at the local level and American families whether they're immigrant families or native born families deserve due process deserve respect and deserve that stature of Liberty that welcomes all comers I yeld back re member yields back I request unanimous consent that Representatives L hood of Illinois Loda
▶ 0:30:57of New York crank of Colorado malakas of New York herd of Colorado Evans of Colorado vany of Texas Ocasio ctez of New York Gillan of New York and Davis of Illinois be waved onto today's hearing for the purpose of asking questions without objection so ordered and now uh before we introduce the the witnesses I recognize Mr Higgins from Louisiana for for 20 seconds thank you Mr chairman and I thank the ranking member as well just to briefly
▶ 0:31:27uh respect respectfully recognize the presence of the family of Wesley Haynes a constituent I'll speak to his case in my time Mr chairman but his parents Patrick and Kathy his wife Olivia his little brother Brady are present today and they have a hard exit soon uh their four-month-old daughter an Marie is waiting at home for Olivia to care for and I I just respectfully acknowledge their presence Mr chairman and Mr ranking member we will uh discuss
▶ 0:31:58the details of their case they tragically lost Wesley Haynes last year thank you Mr chairman for allowing me to recognize his beautiful American family thank you Mr Higgins I'm very pleased today to welcome our outstanding witness panel the mayors of four major American cities uh first we have mayor Eric Adams who's a outstanding mayor of New York City he was sworn into office on January 1st 2022 we have Mayor Mike Johnson the who's
▶ 0:32:28the mayor uh of the City and County of Denver he was sworn into office on July 17th 2023 I now recognize representative Christ morte from Illinois for one minute to introduce our next witness Mr chair I'm pleased to introduce Brandon Johnson mayor of the greatest city in the world namely Chicago a city that was built by generations of immigrants people like my parents and myself Mayor Johnson was raised in Elgen Illinois which I'm proud to represent in Congress the mayor was one of of 10
▶ 0:32:58children born to Andrew and Wilma Jean Johnson his parents inspired him to become a teacher in the Chicago public schools and then later to run for office Mayor Johnson won his first race for Cook County Commissioner in 2018 and later became mayor of Chicago in 2023 Mayor Johnson has dedicated his life to public service and I'm pleased to welcome my fellow illinoisan to the United States House of Representatives and to the oversight committee welcome mayor and now recognize
▶ 0:33:28represent Presley from Massachusetts for one minute to introduce our next witness thank you Mr chair I'm proud to introduce mayor Michelle woo a dedicated leader committed to making Boston a welcoming home for everyone and the first woman and person of color to be elected mayor the city of Boston for over a decade I've had the privilege of working alongside mayor woo and witnessing her dedication to Public Service firsthand she leads with compassion she's Innovative and under her
▶ 0:33:58leadership Boston has become the safest major city in America a city that is welcoming to families from all walks of life just weeks ago she welcomed her newest family member baby Meera who is with us today A beautiful reminder of the future she's working to build Madame mayor I am grateful for your partnership friendship and Leadership thank you for being here gentle lady yields back and finally we're also joined by Mr David beer uh who is the director dor of immigration studies at
▶ 0:34:28the KO Institute uh Mr Beer is the minority witness uh here today I want to thank you all again for joining us and I look forward to our discussion this afternoon pursuant to committee rule 9g the witnesses will please stand and raise the right hand do you solemnly swear affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth will help you God let the record show that the witnesses
▶ 0:34:59answered in the affirmative thank you all you may take a seat we again appreciate you being here today and look forward to your testimony now let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written statement and they will appear in full in the hearing record please limit your oral statement to five minutes and we're going to limit our questions to five minutes and that's going to be enforced today and that's for both sides both sides uh as a as a reminder please press the button on the microphone in front of you so that it is on in the members can hear you uh when you
▶ 0:35:29begin to speak the light in front of you will turn green after 4 minutes the light will turn yellow when the red light comes on your five minutes have expired and we would ask that you please wrap up I now recognize mayor Adams for his opening statement good morning chairman okoma ranking member conly and members of the committee as mayor of New York City and a former police officer for 22 years keeping New York is safe is my top priority and it has has been our administration's North
▶ 0:35:59Star when I entered this role my job was to help our city recover from the negative effects of covid most importantly to bring down crime as a result overall crime was down across New York City last year and we have now had three straight months of double digigit declines in Major Crimes I'm here today to testify on how New York City can continue to reduce crime even as a sanctuary City to be clear
▶ 0:36:30a sanctuary City classification does not mean our city will ever be a safe haven for violent criminals it also does not give New York City the authority to violate Federal immigration laws to the contrary New York City will always comply with city state and federal laws as it does now Lord Biden immigrants in New York have an important role immigrant New York workers including those who are undocumented
▶ 0:37:01pay billions of dollars in taxes and contribute billions more in spending power to our economy immigrants also play a vital role in the functioning of the city this was on full display during the covid-19 pandemic the various immigrant residents of our city worked to keep the city moving while many other the New Yorkers were able to shelter in place and work work remotely hospitals the food industry and many other businesses were
▶ 0:37:31able to function because of the commitment of our immigrant population as mayor I do not control who enters or remains in our country but I do have to manage the population that is within our city in order to carry out this function without having long-term negative ramification I must create an atmosphere that allows every law abiding resident documented or not to access vital services without fear
▶ 0:38:01of being turned over to Federal authorities I cannot have a city where parents are afraid to send their children to school or where children are sleeping on the streets creating the potential for child exploitation and sex trafficking if an undocumented person refuses to seek medical care until they have a medical emergency our City's health care system will be strained and if an undocumented indiv idual Witnesses a crime but is afraid to call 911 for fear of
▶ 0:38:32being turned over to Federal authorities criminals will roam free and it reminds me of my early days as a police officer I have seen firsthand the damage that can be done when someone is too afraid to seek out the police early in my career I responded to a man who was calling out for help we caught the suspect but he came to filling out the when he came to filling out the police report the individual an undocumented man from China said he did not want to file a report and
▶ 0:39:02put a Target on his back with Federal immigration authorities approximately four days four decades later our country still is in desperate need of comprehensive immigration reform and as a result New York City was hit with the largest humanitarian crisis in our City's history over the last three years federal law did not allow me to stop buses from entering New York City state law require me to provide all in our city with housing and Mills and to educate children
▶ 0:39:32city law makes it unlawful to collaborate with ice for civil enforcement we comply with all of these legal requirements and still manage the humanitarian crisis with the care and compassion while at the same time bringing down crime recovering our economy and preventing any child from being forced to sleep on the streets comprehensive comprehensive immigration reform is long overdue while the solution is not within my control as a mayor
▶ 0:40:03I am committed to working with Federal officials to give to go after violent gangs and those who harm residents of our city this is why we have over 330 NYPD offices assigned to different Federal Joint Task forces over 70 of which are assigned to task forces with Homeland Security investigation the criminal investigation arm of ice those task forces focus on many different important priorities including going
▶ 0:40:33after violent gangs and child exploitation I look forward to sharing New York City collaborat collaborations that we do daily with our city state and federal Partners to keep New York City to be continue to be the safest big city in America thank you thank you I now recognize Denver Mayor Johnson for his opening statement uh good morning Mr chairman and thank you for inviting me to testify today
▶ 0:41:03this committee convened this hearing on the critical topic of immigration I want to tell you Denver's story when I became mayor 20 months ago Denver was already receiving buses of immigrants with little to no notice or coordination at one point we were receiving 10 to 11 buses a day dropping off as many as 300 people mostly women and children in 10° weather with only sandals and a t-shirt shirt leaving them in danger of freezing to death on our streets all told 42,000 people arrived in
▶ 0:41:34Denver over 18 months the largest per capita influx of any city in America we are each entitled to our own opinion about what should happen at the border but that was not the question facing Denver the question Denver faced was what will you do with a mom and two kids dropped on the streets of our city with no warm clothes no food and no place to stay as mayor I have to protect the health and safety of everyone in our city as a man of faith I have a moral obligation to care for those in need
▶ 0:42:04as scripture says for I was hungry and you gave me something to eat I was thirsty you gave me something to drink I was a stranger and you invited me in so that's what we did in Denver we believe our problems are solvable and we are the ones to solve them so we went to work when we started we had the largest encampment in Denver history with more than 200 migrant families living in freezing temperatures so we opened eight different city shelters housing 5,000 people city employees volunteered to take extra
▶ 0:42:34shifts and Denver residents stepped up making meals donating clothes Furniture school supplies some even welcomed families into their own homes we helped 8,700 eligible individuals apply for work authorization so they could put food on their own table pay their own rent and reduce the strain on resources as a result a year later there is not a single migrant in Camp left in the city we have closed all of our shelters we have connected people to jobs and housing and the city's immigrant support budget has dropped
▶ 0:43:04by 90% And in the midst of this migrants did not bring a wave of crime to Denver in fact crime went down homicides dropped 177% shooting victims dropped 24% auto theft down 29% America is not just a place it's a belief some people are born into it some fight their whole life to get to it it's a belief that all are created equal it's a belief that it doesn't matter where you came from if you're willing to fight hard enough Julian
▶ 0:43:34bassetta parents believed that so they brought him to this country from Mexico when he was 10 they taught him respect and they taught him to love and serve his community as an adult he decided the most honorable way to serve his community was in uniform so he enlisted in the Air Force then he served as a sheriff then finally as a police officer where he served with distinction until one day he was pursuing a criminal on a dangerous bridge and fell to his death in the midst of the immigration crisis I attended the Fallen officer's Memorial as I watched officer's hand
▶ 0:44:05officer basser's 10-year-old daughter a folded American flag I watched her cry as she wrapped her little arms around that flag and holding it tight the way she wished she could hold her dad but never will again for the rest of her life she will cherish that flag that American flag because it is the country that her dad loved it is the country he chose it is the country he served it is the country he gave his life for so if we want to tell the story of what impact immigrants have in America we must
▶ 0:44:35tell the full story that story must acknowledge that this country is lucky to have people like juli and bassetta who love this country enough to risk their lives to keep us safe to keep all of us safe when buses started showing up filled with migrants someon my city were afraid just like I'm sure some of your constituents were afraid they were afraid about crime and homelessness and worried about about what these new people might take away from them I understand that fear and the truth is people who are new to this country do good and bad
▶ 0:45:05just like all of us but there's another truth when those buses kept on coming Denver made a choice as a city not to hate each other but to help each other not to turn on each other but to turn to each other and see if together we could solve a problem that felt bigger than any one of us and that's what we did it wasn't perfect and it required Sacrifice from all of us but in the end Denver came out stronger and closer than we were before because Americans expect us to do more
▶ 0:45:35than point fingers they expect us to solve problems so if Denver can find a way to put aside our ideological differences long enough to manage a crisis we didn't choose or create it seems only fair to ask that the body that is actually charged with solving this National problem this Congress can finally commit to do the same thank you Mr chairman thank you now recognize Chicago Mayor Johnson for thank you thank you chairman colr thank you to the ranking member Connell and to members of this committee I have the great privilege
▶ 0:46:05and honor of serving as mayor of the city of Chicago the third largest city in the nation established by a black Haitian man and a PanAm woman Chicago is and always has been a proud city of immigrants generations of new arrivals including the descendants of the enslaved during the Great Migration created a vibrant City where one in five residents is foreign born
▶ 0:46:36each day I wake up to serve every one of Chicago's 77 unique neighborhoods and those who live in our great city as mayor of Chicago nothing is more important to me than the safety and well-being of all residents and since I was elected my Administration has been laser focused on creating and implementing Public Safety initiatives that protect all Chicagoans we launched the people's plan for Community safety which builds trust between communities
▶ 0:47:06and law enforcement by prioritizing transparency and violence intervention we established a dedicated robbery task force that reduced robberies by 25% Citywide we added over 200 detectives increasing the clearance rates on our cases and we've updated police equipment and technology so that our police officers have the tools they need to effectively prevent and fight crime our
▶ 0:47:36efforts to improve Public Safety by building trusts with and investing in our communities are working violent crime is down in Chicago the city ended 2024 with its lowest homicide rate in five years the city is also safer because of our welcoming city ordinance that law makes sure that the city's police resources are focused on our priorities in fact the 40 years
▶ 0:48:07the 40 Years of Chicago's leaders have recognized that our policies toward civil immigration matters help to prevent and solve crimes put simply any actions that amplify fears of deportations make Chicago more dangerous those fears cause Witnesses and victims to avoid cooperation with police the cooperation of all people regardless of their immigration status is essential to achieving the city's goals of reducing crime and pursuing Justice for victims
▶ 0:48:38when there is trust between City's residents and the police undocumented immigrants come forward to report crimes to local law enforcement and provide information that helps the police solve those crimes and now I know there are myths about these laws but we must not let mischaracterizations and fear mongering obscure the reality that Chicago's crime rates are trending down we still have a long way to go but sensationalizing tragedy in the name of political expediency is not
▶ 0:49:08governing grandstanding every violent crime is devastating but scapegoating entire communities is not only misleading it is unjust and it is beneath us so let me be clear Chicago's welcoming city ordinance and our other laws and policies do not lead to more crime they do not not prevent cooperation with federal law enforcement on criminal criminal matters and we do not Harbor criminals we arrest them often because of laws that allow residents to feel safe helping the
▶ 0:49:38police as mayor I'm building a Chicago that embodies the dream of my father had when he came from Salis Mississippi during the second migration a Chicago that invest in housing health care jobs and education and that's why we've increased safe and stable housing by adding almost four thousand more units expanded Access to Health Care by opening three Mental Health Centers and focused on getting our young people well-paying jobs with summer jobs increasing by 45% since I've taken
▶ 0:50:08office our local Partnerships have built a solid foundation a better stronger and a much safer Chicago we need this body's support for these efforts we are ready to partner with you on the measures we know promote trust and create sustainable Public Safety and to the people of Chicago and all hardworking people across this great nation these values are our North Star The Drinking Gourd we follow to a better future we will not live in fear it is not our portion
▶ 0:50:38we will not go back I do look forward to answering the questions of this committee thank you thank you I now recognize Boston mayor woo for her opening statement thank you chairman comr ranking member Connelly and members of the committee my name is Michelle woo I am the the daughter of immigrants and since November of 2021 I have had the honor of serving as mayor of Boston I'm proud to be here on behalf of our city the police officers
▶ 0:51:09First Responders city workers the faith leaders teachers parents and neighbors who partner every day to make Boston the safest major city in the nation and I'm proud every day to work alongside the greatest Police Commissioner in the nation commissioner Micha Cox every year since I took office we've set a new record low for gun violence in Boston last year Boston saw the fewest homicides on record in the last 70
▶ 0:51:39years those are the facts and Behind These record lows are historic highs the most ever young people working paid summer jobs the most pre- seats at no cost to families the most affordable housing built in a we have invested in the kinds of opportunities that cultivate prosperity and eradicate crime and the laws on our books promote the kind of Community Trust that keeps all of us
▶ 0:52:10safe in Boston our Police Department resources and taxpayer dollars go towards preventing and solving crimes and when it comes to criminal matters the Boston police partner every day with state and federal law enforcement but Massachusetts state law and the Boston trust act make clear that immigration is federal law enforcement's responsibility we are the safest major city in the country
▶ 0:52:40because our gun laws are the strongest in the nation because our officers have built relationships over decades and because all of our residents can trust that when they call 911 in the event of an emergency or to report a crime help will come this Federal administration's approach is undermining that trust in the past month I've met with residents and Faith leaders in community centers and places of worship asking my constituents
▶ 0:53:10what they want Congress to know and what I heard over and over again was fear and frustration I spoke with pastors whose pews are half empty on Sundays doctors whose patients are missing appointments teachers whose students aren't coming to class neighbors afraid to report crimes in their communities and victims of violence who won't call the police this Federal Administration is making hard-working taxpaying God-fearing
▶ 0:53:40residents afraid to live lives a city that's scared is not a city that's safe a land ruled by fear is not the land of the free next month Boston will celebrate 2 50 years of our nation's freedom and in every one of those years Boston has welcomed the world to our Shores from the English immigrants fleeing religious persecution to the Irish forced out by
▶ 0:54:10famine to the families from Haiti the Dominican Republic Cabo Vietnam and so many more who call Boston home today we are the safest major city in the nation we are home to the greatest Health Care the greatest colleges and universities the most advanced innovators and the 2024 World Champion Celtics we are the Cradle of democracy and the City of Champions we are all of these things not in spite of our
▶ 0:54:40immigrants but because of them one in seven signers of the Declaration of Independence were immigrants on the last four Red Sox rosters to win a World Series one in five were immigrants of all the faculty at Boston University to have earned a Nobel Prize all but one were immigrants today one in four Boston residents were born somewhere else most have jobs many have kids all of them chose this country as
▶ 0:55:11their home because like my mom and dad they believe that here where you've been doesn't limit where you're going the strength of your character has nothing to do with the color of your passport and how hard you work matters more than where you were born born that wherever you're from if you pitch in look out for your neighbors and cheer for the home team you can build a better future here for the people you love so to every one of my neighbors back in Boston know this
▶ 0:55:41you belong here this is your Boston this is our city we are the safest major city in the Nation because we are safe for everyone thank you thank you and now recognize Mr Beer for his opening statement chairman comr ranking member Connelly and distinguished members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to testify the KO institute's
▶ 0:56:11half century of independent research demonstrates the people of all Races religions and birthplaces can thrive in a free Society Liberty must be protected both from over intrusive government and from private violence unfortunately the president's chaotic indiscriminate deportation plan does the opposite it harms Public Safety threatens Americans rights and undermines the successful integration
▶ 0:56:42of America's immigrants into its society and economy the president's first action was to resend the requirement that ice target Public Safety threats first he has ordered that millions of vetted immigrants be stripped of lawful status and deported he is even attempting to deport the US born children of people without permanent status this flagrantly unconstitutional act
▶ 0:57:12effectively orders a series of crimes wrongful arrest and imprisonment civil rights violations and unlawful deprivation of voting rights never before in American history has a president sought the power to strip potentially tens of millions of Americans of their constitutional rights the president is also explicitly asserting the authority to ignore any law passed by you Congress that provides due process for people accused
▶ 0:57:42of being in the country illegally the Administration has repeatedly misled you and the public about who it is targeting stating it would focus on Public Safety threats that only the worst of the worst would be sent to onano Bay and that every person it had arrested had a criminal record we now know that most ice arrests since the inauguration have been of people without a criminal record indeed he is arresting people who entered legally never violated any law
▶ 0:58:12and sending them to Guantanamo Bay prison it is no surprise in this Lawless environment that many people and many cities simply do not trust the federal government on immigration that is a problem but under our Constitution states determine their policies Congress cannot force them it must reestablish trust unfortunately some members of Congress want to force an
▶ 0:58:42indiscriminate policy of mass deportation on the entire country with no Public Safety Focus if Congress wants more cooperation it should address the concerns of these that what the what Congress should do is reestablish trust indiscriminate Mass deportation agenda is a far greater threat to Public Safety than any City policy a mountain of
▶ 0:59:13Empirical research shows that reasonable restrictions on cooperation do not increase crime rates and that immigrants lower crime rates immigrants including illegal immigrants commit crimes serious enough for them to be incarcerated at half the rate of us-born Americans data from Texas shows that illegal immigrants are 36% less likely to commit and be convicted of murder at least before this current Mass deportation effort
▶ 0:59:43immigrants were more likely to report crimes than us-born Americans don't jeopardize that mass deportation is diverting law enforcement resources away from obtaining just Justice for victims indeed it even targets the victims sabotaging local economies and obliterating communities will not restore Public Safety it will make us poor while increasing the crime rate and victimization rate for Americans
▶ 1:00:14there is a better approach we don't need chaos and disorder of illegal immigration or of mass deportation why don't people come legally because Congress has provided so few options for them to do so not updating its laws in the last three and a half decades just 3% of those applying for permanent legal status in 2024 received it that's the failed policy
▶ 1:00:44let peaceful immigrants pay to get vetted work and contribute legally and let law enforcement at all levels focus on keeping Americans safe thank you right our Witnesses have concluded their opening statements we're going to begin with uh with questions from members and I want to remind the members we have 60 members today uh that are going to ask questions so I'm going to strictly enforce the five minutes
▶ 1:01:14uh I'll hit the gavel if anyone's still uh talking and we'll allow the the witnesses to answer the question but let's please be mindful we have a lot of questioners today for this very important hearing and again we thank the witnesses I'll recognize myself uh to begin questions for five minutes and I have limited time so I want to start with a simple yes or no question uh and I'm going to hold you all to that because after the first question then we'll allow for a little more time but mayor Johnston in 2017 Denver prohibited City officials including
▶ 1:01:44Corrections Officers from assisting and cooperating with any investigation detention or arrest procedures related to Federal immigration laws the city also stated that Federal immigration authorities shall not be granted access or allowed to use the the secure areas of any city or county jail Mayor Johnson is Denver a City a lot of folks use that term yes or sorry Mr chairman um folks use that term differently I can tell you what Denver does we do not okay I take
▶ 1:02:15that as a yes may Mayor Johnson no yes or no I take that as a yes Mayor Johnson on March 10th 2023 you posted on X that Chicago must lead and live by the promise to be a sanctuary city is Chicago a sanctuary City a 40-year PO policy of being a welcoming City yes a 40-year policy welome city mayor woo in November 2024 you gave an interview noting that you served on the city council a decade ago when when the Boston trust Act was first passed
▶ 1:02:45you said in that interview that in terms of Boston's policy there is a Prohibition on resources and Personnel going to enforce civil immigration detainers meaning Boston police and other departments cannot cooperate with ice when it comes to detaining on civil warrants mayor is Boston a sanctuary City Boston is a safe City I take that as a yes and mayor Adams on November 12th 20124 you said quote this is a sanctuary City but I must
▶ 1:03:15comment that you have of of the witnesses today of the major cities you have publicly stated that uh you were willing to work with with ice on the detaining the the most criminal illegals and I want to publicly thank you for that but my question to you sir is New York City a sanctuary City based on our classific based on our CL classification yes okay last year in a Boston suburb an illegal alien raped and impregnated is
▶ 1:03:4514-year-old daughter while living in a shelter for illegal aliens mayor woo under Boston law would you turn this criminal over to ice on a container whenever there's a criminal warrant Boston police enforce that and hold people accountable so would you turn that criminal over to ice this happened outside the city of Boston but I can tell you in the city whenever someone commits a crime whenever there's a criminal warrant we hold them accountable if ice deems that they are
▶ 1:04:16dangerous enough to hold obtain a criminal warrant and the Boston police will enforce it will you do turn that Criminal over to ice we follow the laws I take in Chicago an illegal alien who is a suspected member of a violent foreign gang who was brought into custody for his potential involvement in a murder he was released when Cook County declined to press charges this illegal alien is also facing charges for kidnapping and sexually assaulting his former girlfriend
▶ 1:04:46last year now he's on the streets Mayor Johnson under Chicago Law would you turn this criminal over to ice on a detainer our local law enforcement works hard every day to get criminals off the streets of Chicago would you turn that criminal over to ice that's the problem that's one of the topics of this conversation that's one of the problems we've heard from uh Tom hman and and from the homeland security is that in your cities when someone's apprehended
▶ 1:05:17for a crime and ice is now with this new federal policy wanting to come in and Deport the Criminal Alien that you will not cooperate with ice will you turn that criminal over to ice and we do not Harbor um criminals um our local police department works hard every single day to ensure that the city of Chicago isfe or no will you turn the criminal over to ice with a Criminal warrant
▶ 1:05:47from the federal government our local law enforcement repeatedly collaborates with federal so you're saying publicly today you will turn that alien over to ice in in a safe place like a jail and not turn them out on the street and say here you go ice good luck you will turn that criminal over to ice with a Criminal warrant as we have
▶ 1:06:17done for 40 years should that criminal be turned over to ice with a Criminal warrant they are subject to the federal laws and that includes deportation my time has expired but uh again the point that we've got to iron out today is that we have to have cooperation it is federal law to turn over those illegal criminals to ice and we have heard reports and many of you have said publicly
▶ 1:06:47that you are going to obstruct that that is against the law and we're going to hear more about that today now I recognize the ranking member Conley for his f minutes thank you uh mayor woo I quoted Tom homman the bordar saying that he wanted to bring hell he was bringing hell to the city of Boston what did you understand him to mean by that let's talk about Tom homman shame on him for lying about my city
▶ 1:07:18for having the nerve to insult our Police Commissioner who has overseen the safest Boston's B in anyone's lifetime bring him here under oath and let's ask him questions I am here to make sure that the city of Boston is safe others may want to bring hell we are here to bring peace to cities everywhere mayor Johnston of Denver um what would your reaction be if Tom homman wants to bring hell to your City Denver
▶ 1:07:48we think that we have folks in Denver who are working hard planned by the rules paying taxes there is no one that is seeking uh hell to come the Denver what people are looking for is opportunity and hope and for the record he can do whatever he wants to do I guess but the fact of the matter is you absorbed on a per capita basis the immigration uh a year or two ago and you indicated that your crime rate actually fell it didn't increase is that correct that is correct crime is down in Denver we have uh homicides
▶ 1:08:18down 17% violent shootings are down 24% and I'm sorry I've got limited time um mayor woo same thing in Boston the Boston crime rate has been falling correct we had 24 homicides last year 24 too many but that represented a tremendous reduction one of the biggest drops anywhere in the country thank you so the correlation between immigration and crime is false as you point out Mr Beer perhaps you can elaborate that I find it ironic that you
▶ 1:08:48characterized correctly in my view president Trump and Tom homan's uh approach to immigration as lawless when they're invoking Law and Order and crime as the rationale for their lawlessness could you expand on the lawlessness and the irony of the fact that as you point out in your testimony the crime rate among immigrants is half that of the native population that's right I have a table in my written testimony you can look at top
▶ 1:09:1820 cities for immigration court filings over the last four years 19 of those cities saw a decline in their homicide rate uh if you look at all of the major cities there is a negative correlation between increasing numbers of immigrants and the homicide rate so that means more immigrants lower homicide rates that holds true across the United States so I think the correlation that's trying to be made is more immigrants more illegal immigrants more chaos more crime
▶ 1:09:48that does not hold what we do see under this Administration is a increasing willingness to IGN IGN the laws uh he is as I mentioned uh signed an executive order that says he can ignore due process rights for people who are accused of being in the country illegally this is an incredibly dangerous assertion of authority and should be investigated by Congress and is it a reasonable uh proposition for a local leader I know I was chairman of my County which is like being mayor of a
▶ 1:10:19large County and um you know we focused on local law enforcement you know we try help the feds when we could we were Cooperative where we could be but our job was local law enforcement and there is a clash when ice behaves this way and I described some horrible incidents um it instill fear in the Immigrant community and it Fosters non-cooperation rather than cooperation which is the Mandate of each of these leaders is it not
▶ 1:10:49absolutely we want cooperation many of these cities are the reason why immigrants are more likely to cooperate and Report crimes to the police than the US born population is so there there are good reasons to limit this Mass deportation of of people in their communities I would just argue that the premise of this hearing is false we have local law enforcement cooperating with the local political leadership and it's working it's bringing down crime rates and the proposition that immigrants cause
▶ 1:11:19crime is false in fact patently false as your testimony I think uh would demonstrate Mr Beer and the idea that these are Sanctuary cities that need to be punished is simply a war on Urban America and I'm proud of the Mayors who are in front of us here today and I thank them for their testimony and I thank them for their service to their local communities I relate to it and I think it's a noble calling I yield back gentleman yields back chair recognize Miss bobert from Colorado
▶ 1:11:49thank you Mr chairman Mayor Mike Johnston um I hope we can start off on uh a level field of agreement here so in your testimony you said that locals were asking Denver what will you do when they saw 10 to 11 buses coming in a day and 42,000 illegal aliens entering their City Denver what will you do and in a Fox 31 interview in January you blamed state law for not allowing the city of Denver to coordinate with ice resulting
▶ 1:12:20in Denver being a sanctuary City saying quote the whole state is bound by our state law in this which is pretty consistent in some of these practices like everywhere in the state we don't honor ice detainers end quote I've demanded Governor Jared pus and the Colorado State Legislature to repeal them Douglas County has led on a lawsuit to get those Laws repealed so Mr Mayor would you
▶ 1:12:50join me today and calling and demanding that these Sanctuary policies these Colorado state laws be repealed thank you congresswoman uh yes or no Mr Mayor pardon M yes or no will you join me I do not believe the detainer law needs to be changed I can tell you what de does you don't want them to coordinate with ice but yet you're blaming the state of Colorado for those policies it's a Statewide law it's not a Denver law and you're blaming
▶ 1:13:21the state of Colorado for the law yet you will not call for that law to be rep appealed correct yes or no we do coordinate with ice presently I'm happy to tell you what we do on that so we've honored detainer requests more than 1226 times over the last years what about before what about before a warrant there are many issues before a warrant so if what happens is if ice has a sends us a detainer request what well you have local Law Enforcement Officers Mr Mayor who are unable to coordinate with ice to even get the initial warrant they aren't allowed to
▶ 1:13:51tell them that they are illegal aliens so un Ely we you won't join me in asking for this law demanding that this law be repealed so let's keep going in 2017 Denver passed an ordinance that ensured any City employee who spoke with Federal immigration authorities would be fired among other policies that have led to local and National media Outlets to call Denver a sanctuary City so now let me ask you would a um
▶ 1:14:22would a city employee be fired for communicating with anyone from the EPA right now congresswoman our policy is we don't ask people's status employee be fired for communicating and coordinating talking with an agent from the EPA a federal employee not to my knowledge Congress what about Health and Human Services would they get fired for talking with someone from Health and Human Services and not to my knowledge congresswoman so they would only be fired for talking to federal law enforcement officers
▶ 1:14:52uh no that's incorrect congresswoman our our city employees doed in 2017 Mr Mayor our city employees do in fact communicate with ice we do coordinate on multiple things with ice for instance if there is a violent criminal warrant in the city we do that we're talking before the warrants Mr Mayor there are issues happening before warrants are issued and local law enforcement officers are unable to coordinate because there is no warrant and your ordinance says that a city employee would be fired for communicating
▶ 1:15:22with federal law enforcement so you've been mayor for 600 days have you ever called for that ordinance to be repealed we are not unable to coordinate with ice right now we're in communication with ice right now only if there is a warrant but I'm talking prior to the warrant we wouldn't have a reason to coordinate because you don't know if they're illegal because you are unable to coordinate until there is a warrant so that's why this ordinance needs to be repealed um so now the 600 days there's been no time to ask for this to be repealed um you you did have a newcomers Playbook 25
▶ 1:15:52Pages you had time to put that together um and you had time to uh agree with the city council to authorize up to $2 million to pay Joe Biden's former lawyer um his Law Firm to help cover your ass uh for Denver's Sanctuary City policies for this hearing correct thank you congresswoman we uh have council did you authorize that spending we have Council to support this committee's investigation into any documents you may have that is a year-long contract
▶ 1:16:22for the 13,000 city employees budget May request documents from seriously declining Denver magazine reported that Denver has spent $7.5 million on shipping illegal aliens to other destinations mayor Adams did mayor Johnston ever coordinate with you and tell you that he was shipping IL illegal aliens to your city we we coordinated and communication around the entire Asylum Seeker issue in our cities so I've heard that Denver crime went down well Aurora's crime went up because you were
▶ 1:16:53also shipping them to Aurora and we have documentation that I don't have time to discuss here in this hearing that proves you were shipping illegal aliens to Aurora their crime was increasing while you were hiding under laws that you will not demand be repealed ordinance from your city and then crime was going up from Trend araga gangs uh vandalizing Department owners thank you Mr chairman and I hope that we can get this we have a five minute rule Mr chairman chair chair J ladies times expired chair
▶ 1:17:23recognize M Norton from Washington DC uh there have been a lot of uh of talk today about these cities and they are in my view principal decision not to respond to extrajudicial ice detainers but I would like to back up and talk about these detainers uh what these detainers really are requests from
▶ 1:17:53Ice to UNC constitutionally holds someone without due process or probable cause entering enforcing ice detainers is also expensive often results in mistakenly holding US citizens and undermines Public Safety it diverts resources from protecting the local community to carry out the federal government's
▶ 1:18:23job of of immigrant enforcement Mayor Johnson mayor Johnston what challenges do ice detainers represent to your law enforcement and City resources uh thank you congresswoman I think that was to me right sometimes that's correct okay um thank you congresswoman I think it it's important I appreciate to describe what Denver currently does uh in terms of what coordination looks like and what it doesn't
▶ 1:18:54which is if we get a detainer request if we have someone in our custody that ice would like to get access to what we do is we provide them a notification of release and so if that person will be released from our custody we notify them of the time and the date when they will be released so ice if they choose to could pick that person up we have done that 1226 times over the last seven years and that has enabled ice when they choose to to be able to bring someone into custody what we do not do is hold someone beyond their release date because there are multiple
▶ 1:19:25uh courts who have found that to be unconstitutional if someone is serving a sentence and that sentence expires this Friday we can't hold them another seven days without an additional charge and so that is what state law does and sheriffs around the state would say it is a strain on local resources to hold them for uh a civil issue that is not linked to a criminal charge that we have in our city or other jurisdiction that's why we don't honor those types of detainers Mayor johnon how about for Chicago
▶ 1:19:56so thank you for that question and for Chicago again our top priority with the welcoming city ordinance is to ensure maximum safety the type of coordination that happens between our local law enforcement and our communities is Paramount to building trust and keeping our community safe um the ordinance as well as the state law the Illinois trust act uh which was passed with bipartisan support and signed by the Republican Governor Bruce ronner um we do not uh permit
▶ 1:20:26our local law enforcement uh from engaging in um any federal matters um with a Criminal warrant our our city and our state um will cooperate with the federal government but without a criminal warrant our local law enforcement focuses in on local issues to keep the people of Chicago safe uh mayor woo how would fulfilling uh
▶ 1:20:56ice detainers detract from Public Safety in your city thank you congresswoman for hosting us first of all in in your District um we hear every day from Boston residents a city that is 28% people who were born in another country that the trust and feeling that they know they can call 911 when they need help or if they have information to solve a crime and police need that help that they feel comfortable in doing so and so
▶ 1:21:26our policy in Boston is that regardless of your background or immigration status you have access to our libraries we want you to take your kids to school we want you to be part of our community and also regardless of immigration status if you commit a crime if you do harm in the community you will be held accountable uh it is critical to the safety of Americans that cities have the ability to decide what is best what is in the best interests of their people
▶ 1:21:57Mayors and local enforcement know their cities best um I would yield any time remaining to the ranking member I I just want to underscore what the general lady has said local government knows best how local enforcement law enforcement works and cooperating with ice is part of that but they can't be a substitute for ice doing its own job which is a federal responsibility thank you for yielding uh
▶ 1:22:27uh before I recognize Mr Jordan I Believe M Boward has a unanimous consent yes Mr chairman I'd like to ask unanimous consent to submit to the record multiple local uh news articles referencing Denver's Sanctuary policies including the um newcomers Playbook written by mayor Adams and the budget which shows um millions and millions of dollars of the Denver City budget C without objection so ordered chair now recognizes Mr Jordan from Ohio uh thank you Mr chairman Johnston uh who's Abraham
▶ 1:22:58Gonzalez uh thank you Congressman he is a uh individual that was released from the county jail on Friday uh in the City and County of Denver that's all you know about him uh I do know that he was uh facing charges that the Venezuelan gang member arrested by border patrol on September 20th 2023 released into the country by the Biden Administration a few months later he's arrested in your city charged with aggravated assault on March 11th 2024
▶ 1:23:29he's charged with motor vehicle theft stole a car and then on March 20th 2024 Mr Gonzalez is charged with felony menacing six days after that last charge I send you a detainer which includes an administrative warrant basically it says if you're going to release this bad guy this gang member who allegedly stole a car menaced people and assaulted people give us a 48h hour head up that right that refresh your memory I do know about the detainer
▶ 1:23:59request I do know that we provided a notification of release what kind of notice did you give ice When You released him we gave him notification I'm not sure how many how long advance I do know one hour I do know one hour notice and You released him five days ago right why not give him a why not give him more heads up actually let's put the slide up let's see what it says here but let's put this slide up this is what the Denver Sheriff's Department it's kind of hard to see so I'll read it says Denver Sheriff dep Department ice notification being released to the streets
▶ 1:24:30I simply said we want just release him to us you release him to the streets why not release him to Ice uh thank you what we've done and and we do this uh regularly we've done 1226 of these is we notify I'm asking about one I'm not asking about the 1200 I'm asking about Mr Abraham Gonzalez who's a gang member from Venezuela stole a car assaulted someone you had him in your custody for how long uh I know that we released 345 days you had him in custody and I said hey can you give us 48 Hours
▶ 1:25:00heads up I don't know been one hour notice Mr Congressman we notified them in release there were six ice agents present when he was released so they had enough time to respond and to be present respond where to the jail where we released him from so we released him to we notified them of the release time when we notifi them have released they come to the jail facility to pick them up they're say that's not what you said you said you were release him to the streets did you release him to the streets you release him to ice what we do sir is we release him from our County jail and we coordinate
▶ 1:25:30with ice on that release time and release date so that ice can come and pick them up from that location they were pick them up where in the parking lot uh yes so they're on the facility gu what happened in the parking lot I know sir I've reviewed the video so I looked at it I've talked to the sheriff last night I've already the ice officers got assaulted didn't he I reviewed the video sir had to tase the guy didn't they would you like me to answer sir no I'd like the answer did they tase him uh I know that there were six officers that had mult tasers I saw the six off if if you keep him in the facility and they come in the facility and get him does it take six
▶ 1:26:00officers probably takes two doesn't it so we've had uh we've been doing these as I mentioned 1224 times 1226 times this is the first time I've been made aware of there's been an incident like this so I reached out to ice after I saw the video I've coordinated with their team and offered to sit down and see if there are procedures we can change simp a simp question make sure this works it's a simple question you can release him in the parking lot give ice one hour notice and they got to send six officers to arrest this guy or you can say hey what we're going to here's what we're going to do we're going to hold him you come in and bring two officers
▶ 1:26:30in and you turn him over there why not do it that way we have a city ordance you know why you don't do it that way we have a city ordinance that you're a sanctuary City this is the whole point no sir I disagree with you because I'll tell you why what what if you talk about sanctuary as a definition of shielding people from law enforcement we do not do that what we do do is provide services in this context what we did is we coordinated the release an officer got assaulted because of your policy which says we're going to release him to in your words not mine to the streets they have to arrest him in the parking lot they bring six officers
▶ 1:27:01when they could have had one or two just come in your facility in the jail and take the guy there but you won't do it that way I've seen the video I've reached out to ice I've offered down and coordinate on strategies if we need to uh make adjustments to what we do on releases we'll do that this is the first time in the 1226 releases I read I read your WR testimony last night I read your written testimony last night four and a half pages and you use the word safe safer or safety 13 times talking about
▶ 1:27:31my job is a protect the is the safety of the people in Denver we prioritizing making sure everyone in our community is safe that's a lie because it was not safer for the ice agents who are part of your community no way was it safer the safest thing to do is to say ice we got him in custody come here we're releasing we held him 345 days we can't hold him a second longer we can't wait for you to come inside the building we got to let him go so you have to arrest him in the parking lot that is how stupid Sanctuary policies are and what they mean to the community that you put at risk and to the
▶ 1:28:01ice officers who the officer who was assaulted and they had to use a Taser on it's not good Mr chairman Mr consent request gentlemen gentleman's times expired Chaniz is Mr Lynch from Massachusetts thank you Mr chairman and ranking member connley uh I want to thank the the panelists for your willingness to come before the committee and help us with our work you know I I truly believe that if we had a rational and comprehensive immigration policy in this country if we if we competently
▶ 1:28:31regulated the flow of of immigration if we if we knew the purpose and circumstances of of each immigrant's arrival here and if every immigrant knew what was expected of them when they arrived I honestly and truly believe that immigration could be the greatest for our country look at our our our world Rivals China and Russia no one
▶ 1:29:01no one is trying to sneak into China sneak into Russia it's because what we offer here as a nation there is a substantive issue that's that's at play here and uh I want to I want to address that so under Article 1 Section 8 Clause four of the Constitution it provides Congress and I'll read the section here to establish a uniform rule of naturalization and Clause 18 further provides that Congress has the power
▶ 1:29:32to make all laws that shall be necessary and proper to execute its enumerated powers including immigration so it appears that Congress has taken up that responsibility in the immigration and nationality act which which they they exercise under constitutional uh RIT on the other hand we have local so-called Sanctuary city laws that
▶ 1:30:02that at times so so those Sanctuary cities laws tend to address local cooperation with Federal authorities in your in your jurisdictions within your cities and sometimes it does appear that the sanctuary city laws are defending against the the Congressional grant of to to operate in that area now you all as Mayors you and I ask this of the entire
▶ 1:30:32panel you deal with this every single day and we've heard some of it in your in your testimony eloquently how do how do we as as lawmakers we're struggling with this right now there's a there's a tension between that authority of Congress to act under article one of the Constitution and then your your responsibility nobly taken to provide a safe environment for the residents and visitors to your cities how do we reconcile
▶ 1:31:02and I'm asking you for advice you have a great perspective on this how how do you how how do we together reconcile the tension between those two operating systems grants of power and I I'd welcome any any advice you have on that because that's what we are struggling with up here in terms of trying to come up with a a a comprehensive uh immigration policy that addresses all of these
▶ 1:31:35concerns Mayor Johnson Congressman I'm happy to uh start the response we obviously believe there is a federal system that has Federal obligations and state and local obligations we think as mayor wo said that our officers are uniquely prepared trained and uh and ready to enforce local law and to keep our city safe we want to focus on that we do not have the capacity for our law enforcement to be doing Federal immigration enforcement uh but we are want to be partners in making sure we're pulling violent criminals off the street we do that now we've
▶ 1:32:05done it in the past we'll keep doing it but we think the capacity for the federal government to focus on but what what I'm trying to point at is this so the current president of the United States Donald Trump wrote into office on this issue on this issue he put people in fear I'm in a state that's 2400 miles from the border we're going to spend $1.5 billion on providing services and housing and everything to to people who are in our state unlawfully he got
▶ 1:32:35into office on that issue so the costs to democracy are massive it is now threatening our democracy because we have mishandled this issue so we need to get together on this and and and and turn immigration like I say into the greatest blessing that this this country has and not something that people are afraid of that's that's the challenge Congressman please this may be the last
▶ 1:33:05this may be the last blue dress I'm wearing this month it's going to be green from here on out as we celebrate Irish American Heritage back at home please pass comprehensive immigration law that is consistent and compassionate that will make our jobs possible and we would so appreciate that partnership I hear you thank you I yield back gentleman yields back chair recogniz I have a unanimous consent request I didn't I'm sorry I have a unanimous consent request all right
▶ 1:33:35proceed okay I'd like to seek unanimous consent to enter into the record um thousands of DHS agents shift to deportation instead of drugs weapons and human trafficking that is a February 2025 USA Today without objection so ordered parents pull kids from child care as immigration fears hit us youngest without objection to ordered
▶ 1:34:06chair finally an 11-year-old girl in Texas died by suicide after she was bullied about her family's immigration status her mother says without objection to order chair recognizes Dr gosar from Arizona thank you Mr chairman mayor mayor woo uh I'll be showing up at your house tomorrow with my bags at 5:00 leave your doors unlocked please what are you making for dinner because I expect a warm meal and a balanced diet now
▶ 1:34:36I'm going to need a car and please leave me some cash because I'm going to need to go to my doctor's appointment on Friday that would be to M Mayor Johnson now I don't want to sleep on the couch so put me up at a luxury hotel near the Mary Johnson obviously you wouldn't like this because you don't know me right you know nothing me you might not like that Sanctuary cities offer this kind of hope this false hope to illegal aliens by saying
▶ 1:35:07that very thing stay with me we don't tell anybody that you break our now thank you You' have made the United States complicit and one of the largest purveyors of human trafficking in the world thank you you're disgracing the legal system that came here and the immigrants that came here the right way through Lis Island at the time now through our going through a process
▶ 1:35:38and I want to talk about that process because I've always been told and it's never been really uh challenged is that good process builds good policy builds good politics I think that works really really good because you can always fall back to the process if the process isn't good you always get the good process now you heard the word establishing trust okay how can you establish trust at the very beginning when
▶ 1:36:08you have a false narrative here you're you're defending folks who have broken the law the definition I've always looked at is trust is a series of Promises Kept what kind of trust are you are you supporting here what is a tra a trust with an illegal alien it's a false hope it's a false trust welcome we're bringing you in it's disorganized process now let me ask you
▶ 1:36:38a question uh Adams did you support s sp1070 I'm sorry did you support the uh Arizona law called SP sp1070 I'm not familiar with it sir well let me let me explain okay s sp1070 challenged the federal government on a supremacy clause because we in Arizona wanted that the government wasn't doing anything so we thought we'll do this we can't allow this to them to break laws the the Supreme Court ruled
▶ 1:37:08that struck it down now it seems Contra indicating here that you would have supported sp1070 right Mary Adams um based on the promise that you that that you uh um or would you violate the supremacy clause in regards to immigration would I would I VI violate the supremacy clause this is well what way over my head I've sped
▶ 1:37:39law Mayor Johnson would you have support at s1070 allowing Arizona to follow their own laws because that's what you're doing right here um thank you Congressman uh we currently follow all federal law all state law and all local law so so we do not have any supremacy clause challenges that we're pursuing or maintaining okay well it seems like you are but Mr Johnson do you agree the city of Chicago complies with all laws okay woo I'm not familiar with that law because I'm focused
▶ 1:38:09on the city of Boston but I we follow all state city and federal laws in Boston what happens when you get in conflict with them who do you support the Constitution as I understand it doesn't require cities or police officers or anyone to follow their laws in Conflict follow federal laws in conflict with local laws or state laws okay in the Constitution it says an explicit that the federal government has jurisdiction and Supremacy over all immigration laws right
▶ 1:38:39I mean I heard it a number of times from my colleagues here we're the ones who can Define that we're the ones that have that we just heard we want a comprehensive immigration policy how can you get a comprehensive uh immigration policy when you're defying it from the very get-go you're building it on false premises and false tenants respectfully Congressman you could pass bipartisan legislation and that would be comprehensive immigration law the false narrative is that immigrants in general are criminals or
▶ 1:39:09IM immigrants in general cause all sorts of danger and harm that is that is actually what is undermining safety in our communities if you wanted to make us safe pass gun reforms stop cutting Medicaid stop cutting cancer research stop cutting funds for veterans that is what will make our city safe yes thank you I go back chair recogniz Mr Christ morte from Illinois thank you Mr chair Mayor Johnson there's been much talk about Chicago and its enforcement of laws to
▶ 1:39:39rid our communities of criminals so I want to give you a chance to address some of these questions first mayor Johnson the city of Chicago operates under four sets of laws federal state county and of course Chicago's own laws right that is correct and most of these laws are not within Chicago's sole power to change for example the Illinois trust act a state law was enacted in 2017 by then Republican Governor Bruce rer and dictates interactions between ice and law enforcement
▶ 1:40:09right that is correct and under Chicago's own law I have a copy copy of it right here Chicago is required to help ice whenever ice presents a Judicial criminal warrant for an arrest correct yes in fact Chicago has assisted ice with criminal warrants in the past right yes so just to clear it up anytime that ice does the work and goes to a court to get a criminal warrant to arrest somebody the city of Chicago
▶ 1:40:40not only is required to but does cooperate to remove that criminal from our community right that is correct let me turn to another topic uh president Trump has said many things about Chicago including that it is I have this NBC news report worse Afghanistan mayor I'd suggest the facts suggest otherwise for example K Nast recently named Chicago the best big city in America 8 years in a row a friendly
▶ 1:41:10Amendment best freaking city in the world city of Chicago Chicago is the largest rail Hub in America that is correct Chicago is a Quantum technology Hub in this country $ 20 billion new investment Chicago area is the SE the home to the second most number of Fortune 500 headquarters of any city in America right just voted again the top relocator for corporate headquarters for 13 consecutive years and it's home to O'Hare Airport the most interconnected airport on the continent is
▶ 1:41:41that right that is correct that doesn't sound like Afghanistan to me sir does it the city of Chicago is um a beautiful place we also have 20% of the world's fresh water right in our front yard um our restaurants are amazing in fact everything that is dope about America comes from Chicago a republican named Lincoln was nominated for president in Chicago and a Democrat named Obama called Chicago home too it's the city of big shoulders the heart of the Heartland the home to
▶ 1:42:11the world's best pizza and we're not going to take any slander from Donald Trump or anyone else lying down is that right that is correct sir I want to turn your to attention to another topic Mayor Johnson you'd agree with me that high grocery prices are among the top concerns for the people of Chicago right the economic conditions that are unfortunately that are not being addressed by Washington has caused a great deal of trepidation and anxiety mayor woo according to USDA the wholesale cost of a
▶ 1:42:41dozen eggs has gone from 659 since January 19th When Donald Trump took office to 839 a 27% increase and this has got to anger bostonians right people are doing their very best trying their hardest working multiple jobs and they need support mayor Johnston I suppose that people in Denver are concerned as well right a very concerned this is the most important issue for us is how we make sure that it's affordable to live in the city mayor Adams the same is true for New
▶ 1:43:11Yorkers affordability affordability is an issue that's impacting our city and that's why we're doing the best we can and putting $30 billion back in the pockets of broken Class People president Trump if you're watching watching this hearing I respectfully ask when will egg costs be high enough for you to issue one executive order on bird flu $10 a c carton $15 a carton it'll soon be cheaper to buy a magazine for an AK-47 than to buy breakfast
▶ 1:43:41this is flat out wrong turn to my last topic interestingly last night in a record long address the president did not mention the word Medicaid once which is top of mind for everyone medic Mayor Johnson you don't dispute that 1.6 million people in Cook County are enrolled in Medicaid right I do not dispute that in fact in most of our safety net hospitals 70% of the individuals that are being service are the are being service through medicate I recently received Outreach from lurry children's
▶ 1:44:11a preeminent Children's Hospital located in Chicago they said quote putting a the slashing Medicaid will put access to care for all children in our state at risk you would you would agree that's unacceptable right that is unacceptable it doesn't matter where you're from if you're white black brown poor or Rich massive cuts to Medicaid will devastate our Health Care system thank you and I yield back gentleman yields back chair now recognize Mr Perry from Pennsylvania
▶ 1:44:41thanks Mr chairman uh Mayors thanks for being here leaving your cities to come to Washington DC today by either definition or by claim each of you you I think we could justifiably say represent what's considered a sanctuary City what if you could describe it what would you Sanctuary from what anybody Mayor Johnson you want to start Mayor Johnson Congressman uh that's I welcome that because I wanted to clarify we
▶ 1:45:11do not Shield people from federal I just ask you so you don't consider yourself a sanctuary City we provide services and supports do you consider yourself a sanctuary City that's just just we do not under that definition you you don't use the definition you're not a sanctuary we call ourselves a welcoming City we okay so what's the so what do you welcoming and who are you not welcoming uh well we're welcoming everybody we don't keep folks so you're welcoming criminals that you don't have any idea what their crime background is and that's you're
▶ 1:45:42good with that no we aggressively pursue any no how do you vet the people that you welcome in your sanctu Sanctuary City sir we don't vet folks that arrive from Illinois or California with a background check when they come into the Denver Airport any more than someone from another location so you're welcoming any illegal immigrant or illegal alien to your City without question well folks that make the decision to come to Denver they arrive and then we expect you call them you welcome them you welcome them you call them to your
▶ 1:46:12city and say if you come here you will be safe from what uh thank you sir we don't call anyone to our city folks that arrive in our city we offer same access to Services they may need to be successful uh and if they break the law we hold them accountable we charge them we prosecute them what about if they've already broken the law well they've already broken the law and there is another jurisdiction that has a warrant for that person they let us know and we would cooperate to transfer them to that jurisdiction I I I think we saw in Mr Jordan's conversation with you that you really don't
▶ 1:46:42do that um Mayor Johnson how about you how many it according to my records you have welcomed 51,6 48 illegal aliens to your Sanctuary City so how do I ask you Sanctuary from what if you're referring to the number of individuals that were Bust from Governor Abbott without any coordination the 52,000 individuals that were seeking Asylum um those individuals
▶ 1:47:12were bus to us um I passed a bus ordinance to work to coordinate with the governor of Texas he refused to do that um but that that transfer of individuals was the result of the governor of Texas not the result of a welcoming city ordinance welcoming city ordinance so you're not welcoming these people that came here illegally the individuals that were bust to us were bust to us from the border from they were not welcome in Chicago
▶ 1:47:42you didn't you didn't welcome them you didn't provide them Sanctuary so the welcome in city ordinance is pretty straightforward it allows for our local law enforcement to focus on local policies and that's why we're seeing a decline in violence so you don't care about federal law enforcement polic policies only local policies we comply with all laws what I do care about is the this body Washington passing comprehensive immigration so let me ask you this Chicago residents
▶ 1:48:13reported 28,43 violent crimes during 2024 alone cases of aggravated assault rising to the highest level in two decades now also State funds $160 million were issued to illegal alien for illegal alien job assistance shelters in Chicago You're the mayor of Chicago do you think that your residents or the residents of your state should be paying for
▶ 1:48:43that more than they should be paying for their own needs their own roads their own Public Safety I mean who elected you the people that came illegal illegally whether they were sent to you or not or the people that reside in Chicago who elected you and who do you serve the people of Chicago elected me as the 57th mayor of the city of Chicago and we serve all the residents of the city of Chicago illegal or not criminal or not how many of the
▶ 1:49:1766256 illegal aliens with criminal histories that ice has reported are now residing in Chicago someone will have to get back with you with that number I don't keep count of do you take immigration information from criminals as they're arrested and processed do you take information our local law enforcement focuses on getting all violent individual determine whether they're here legally what their immigration status is as a function of criminal
▶ 1:49:47of your justice system ement please feel free to answer the question mayor the welcome in city ordinance ensures that our local residents communicate and Trust local law enforcement to ensure that criminals and crime is being addressed and that's why Val crime has gone down in theity of Chicago thank you very much chairman I have aous request now chairman I have a unanimous consent request I'm
▶ 1:50:17Sorry Miss Presley I have unanimous consent request go go ahead you like to seek unanimous consent to enter into the record Mass deportations would deliver a catastrophic blow to the US economy this is from The Joint economic committee December 2024 from where what publication The Joint economic committee
▶ 1:50:47December 2024 without objection so ordered I'd like to seek unanimous consent to enter into the record from the American Immigration Council October 2024 Mass deportation devastating cost to America its budget and economy without objection to order chair recognizes Mr Conor from California Mr chair oh oh oh wait I'm sorry I'm sorry uh mayor woo needs a short break to attend to her young child uh
▶ 1:51:18mayor Mr chairman I I got the note that the baby's okay for now so I'll continue uh but thank you I I will is it I believe from my husband that that the baby's okay and and the the arrangement if it's okay was that everyone would take a break so I wouldn't have to go into a back room by myself to nurse when when it's time thank you chair thank you Mr chair Mr chair I find the uh Republican position in this hearing quite ironic because the Republicans are the party that are always
▶ 1:51:48always tting local government state government local control and not having Federal overreach so I want to explore actually one of your favorite topics on the other side of the aisle the infamous mask mandates I know how much you love them when CDC came out with the mask mandate order of January 2021 they said that we needed to have fines of $1,500 for anyone who didn't wear a mask on a plane or
▶ 1:52:18in a public space and they said that there needed to be referred criminally to the Transportation Authority if they violated it more than once now Governor Abbott said in executive order 38 we're not going to enforce we're not going to have our cities enforce the mask mandate and Governor desantes said the same thing we're not going to have our local police enforce the Mandate I want to ask M Adams and M woo because you had slightly different views on the mask
▶ 1:52:48mandate but mayor Adams you were actually praised in New York for saying we are going to take away some of these mask mandates uh earlier so businesses can open uh and there can be a Revival in New York did you ever in law enforcement to your knowledge enforce the CDC mask mandate and ask your law enforcement to find people who didn't wear a mask $1,500 what we did was looked at
▶ 1:53:19the science and looked at how it will impact business and after issuing warnings and education but I think it's it's fair to say mayor right you you never referred anyone to the transportation department for prosecution and you never had local police out there saying we're going to find people $1,500 with the CDC mandate the goal was to always ensure that uh people will carry out the procedure and we did several education in wanted in the process mayor woo you you were
▶ 1:53:49a a great advocate of uh masks and uh looked at the signs do you know if uh your city government actually ever uh used police resources to carry out the CDC or Transportation Department's mask mandate where they were fining $1,500 or referring for criminal prosecution I am not aware of any incidence of someone in Boston having been fined or uh prosecuted for any mask related issues we certainly prioritize public health
▶ 1:54:19and saving lives and so our role as a city was to provide positive communication Outreach make sure there were signs and and different um Community organizations that could go and remind people to stay safe and and do their best to take care of each other and their family and as much of an advocate as you were from es and I was an advocate for ES would you have been hesitant to uh order your law enforcement your local police to say if someone was violating those mask mandates that we need to cooperate and turn them
▶ 1:54:49over uh to the transportation department for proc secution would that have given you some pause uh if uh the federal government were saying use your police departments to find people $1,500 and give us uh the their Records for Criminal prosecution yes it would have and so I guess I'm trying to understand you know there if there are if we set this precedent that we want cities to be enforcing every Federal mandate then what happens when there's a new Democratic
▶ 1:55:19president that comes and says we want a mask mandate that the Republicans may not want and when they're conservatives like Governor DeSantis or Governor Abbott saying we don't want our cities to enforce that is do you see mayor woo any difference between a federal government asking you to enforce laws that is is doing versus a federal government asking you to enforce a mask mandate or frankly to enforce gun laws that may not uh be uh
▶ 1:55:49what your local city department is FOC on it does seem that local Authority is part of our democracy and part of our system of government isn't the real issue here not one of immigration but of federalism isn't the question I mean everyone agrees that there needs to be uh if there's someone who's convicted of a crime that ice has the right to uh enforce those laws the question is just are you going to have local governments in this country be
▶ 1:56:20beholden to new president's directives uh and an armed for enforcing that my view is that we ought to have uh local governments be able to use their uh police officers for their priorities that in its Essence is federalism and it actually used to be the Conservative Republican position gentlemen's time expired chair recognizes Dr Fox from North Carolina thank you Mr chairman um Mayor
▶ 1:56:50Johnson in the the last four years how much has Chicago spent on care for illegal aliens thank you for that question congresswoman so since 2022 since the governor of Texas begani tell me a number I don't I don't need a speech just tell me a number so since 2022 since the governor of Texas was shipping individuals to cities across this country
▶ 1:57:20the city's roughly 1% of the city's budget over the course of four years mayor Johnston the same question and I don't need a speech just a number thank you Dr congresswoman uh uh thank you congresswoman it's 79 million over the last two and a half years mayor Adams same question how much has New York spent to care for illegal approxim approximately $6.9
▶ 1:57:51billion went out of all taxpayers funds mayor woo same question how much has Boston spent to care for illegal aliens in the last four years we do not ask about immigration status and giving city services and providing that access so we do not have a number taxpayers been bearing the brunt of the massive wave of illegal aliens who've entered the United States the Biden Administration seemingly declared taxpayers and hardworking Americans collateral damage in the pursuit of open
▶ 1:58:23again Mayor Johnson are NOS providing services to illegal aliens in Chicago in accordance with the welcoming city ordinance our sister agencies or city departments we do not seek the status of any individual that is seeking service um mayor Johnston are NGO providing services to illegal aliens in Denver Thank You Ma'am when folks arrive on the streets
▶ 1:58:53uh without food or resources or shelter we do provide food or shelter regardless of where folks arrive from mayor Adams same question uh yes in combination of City agencies and nonprofits uh we responded to the migrant Asylum Seekers humanitarian crisis that hit our city and mayor woo I assume you don't know their status but do you know if there are NOS are providing services to people arriving in your city without any kind of
▶ 1:59:24documentation there are Community organizations many of them in Boston who seek to serve all of our Boston residents Congress must provide oversight and ensure accountability for taxpayer funds going to NOS Agents from Customs and Border Protection have been outspoken in opposition to allowing NOS to assist illegal aliens in subversion of Law and Order when ask if NOS are working at Cross purposes to the mission of border patrol agents
▶ 1:59:54the chief of the national border patrol Council said quote most definitely and they should not be allowed but our government allows it end quote NOS receiving taxpayer funding through grants pay for everything from food shelter and transportation to Legal Services that help the migrants Traverse Mexico that is why I introduced HR 245 the grant integrity and Border Security Act this bill would require all NOS
▶ 2:00:25who apply for a Federal grant to certify as part of their application that they have not will not and are not engaging in Acts that violate Federal immigration law if NOS continue violating our immigration laws then my bill would ensure that no federal funds can ever go to the violators it's time to pass this bill ensure accountability and secure our cities and the border and with that
▶ 2:00:55Mr chairman I yield back gentle lady yields back chiz Miss Brown from Ohio thank you Mr chairman today we've heard my colleagues on the other side of the aisle demean and dehumanize immigrants choosing fear-mongering and political theater over real solutions so let's take a moment to set the record straight the best chance for comprehensive immigration reform came in 2013 when a bipartisan C majority passed a bill strengthening border security and providing a path to citizenship for longtime residents
▶ 2:01:25but House Republicans killed it fast forward a decade later to last year the Senate crafted another bipartisan deal one that would have enhanced border security and tackled the fentol crisis with better technology and more agents but Donald Trump torpedoed it preferring anti-immigration rhetoric to real solutions so this isn't about fixing the problem it's about exploiting it and let let not forget the president wasn't complaining about this when he was employing undocumented
▶ 2:01:56immigrants at his Resort we all remember president Trump's tired old tactics from his first term the harmful Muslim ban referring to black and brown countries as quote unquote shitole countries and the cruel images of kids in cages this time around is no different president Trump signed multiple executive orders before even attempting to work with Congress might mind you a Republican controlled
▶ 2:02:26Congress so this isn't about policy it's about fear for the last decade Trump has pushed menacing messages portraying all immigrants as criminals but it isn't just coming from Trump it's being Amplified by rightwing media a recent Expos expose poll found that people who watch Fox News are twice as likely to believe myths about immigration including the false idea that immigrants commit more crimes
▶ 2:02:57than native born Americans This is objectively false yet two and three Fox viewers believe it is true this serves a purpose fueling outrage distracting from real solutions and keeping the conversation stuck in a cycle of fear instead of facts and Trump's latest immigration Crackdown reinforced these misperceptions ice raids choreograph for cameras deportation
▶ 2:03:28sweeps with photo ops wardrobe changes and tough talk the cruel performative videos of immigrants in shackles 200 million dollar in taxpayer money to air prot Trump propaganda ads talk about waste Fraud and Abuse all spectacle no substance all performance no plan on the campaign Trail JD Vance and Donald Trump promoted
▶ 2:03:58vile and xenophobic lies about Haitian immigrants in my state of Ohio and now the Trump Administration has moved to strip protections from 500,000 Haitians these are people who have lived worked and contributed to this country for years and they came here the right way the legal way but instead of recognizing their contributions we are forcing them back to a country plagued by violence instability and
▶ 2:04:28humanitarian crises all so Trump can claim 500,000 more deportations the cruelty isn't just the point it's their pleasure so let's be honest about what's really going on here Mayor Johnson of Chicago what sort of an impact will the Trump administration's decision to allow arrests at sensitive locations like hospitals preschools churches and courts have on your city thank you for that question
▶ 2:04:59as it as a welcome and City space it's important that the trust between the community and law enforcement is strong that's ultimately how we have built a safer City uh just this year alone uh violent crime is down 20% any type of threat to the Civility and to the humanity of people people is a threat to the evolution of our democracy and so it's incumbent upon Washington to ensure that
▶ 2:05:29we are funding our education system that we are funding our transportation system our health care System creating more jobs just since I've been in office we've increased youth employment summer jobs by over 40% making sure that our young people see their purpose is the value of this democracy and so I call on this body to continue to invest in the city of Chicago that sends billions of dolls to Washington thank you fear and cruelty are not the solution it's distinctly unamerican and a dangerous
▶ 2:05:59distraction from the congress's responsibility to actually deliver progress on this challenging facing our country and with that I yield back GLE lady yields back Sher Mr Gman from Wisconsin yeah just a a couple comments first as far as the idea who's committing crimes we have no idea how many illegal immigrants in this country are committing crimes because nobody keeps track okay if I go to a prison or a jail in Wisconsin with I don't know 1,500
▶ 2:06:29inmates and I ask how many of these people are here illegally or how many are uh citizens of another country nobody will know the answer to that question so that's why we don't have hard facts on how many uh crimes people committed the other thing I like to point out is every year in this country about 850,000 new people from other countries are sworn in as American citizens I don't know of Donald Trump ever talking about reducing that number maybe he should
▶ 2:06:59reduce that number but I've never heard him talk about reducing that number Our concern here was illegal immigration and I would hope the vast majority of Americans think we ought to have a immigration law that the 850,000 new citizens every year go through but if we're going to have an immigration law it means we have to do something with the people who try to become permanent residents without going through the proper structure now I think part of our problem here is we have a lot
▶ 2:07:29of people who don't understand why we have an immigration law at all and I want to ask all four of you as I go down uh we go down the row here do you believe the United States should have an immigration law or do you believe that just anybody should be able to show up and come in and we'll start with uh mayor Adams there uh uh I strongly believe we need to have an immigration law I strongly believe we need to secure our borders uh we witnessed a 90% decrease
▶ 2:08:00and we're seeing that play out in our city so we should have a strong immigration law and I I'll ask this question then if you believe we should have an immigration law and then we'll get all four of you here if you believe that do you believe people who ignore the Law whatever that law is uh should be allowed in the country I I think that all of us must be held account a to the law and if we secure our borders to make sure before they come in that is done correctly it is not going to impact cities to carry that burden
▶ 2:08:30like I said close to7 billion doll in tax dollars Mr Johnson do you believe we ought to have an immigration law in this country or do you believe everybody should just be able to walk in here and set up shop thank you sir I do believe we should have an immigration law I do believe we should have secure borders I do believe we should fix our Asylum process I do believe we should let dreamers get access to permanent citizenship if somebody ignores that law and comes in this country do you believe
▶ 2:09:00the whoever ice or border patrol or anybody should spin them around and send them out or can they just ignore the law and because they however cross the Rio Grand overstating a Visa whatever are here do you believe that we ought to do something to the people who are ignoring law thank you sir in the case the folks we're seeing they are coming here because they are claiming Asylum when they claim Asylum they then have a right to a day in court to see if that Asylum question is though if if I
▶ 2:09:30come in this and stay here and I have not gone through any formal process uh to become a citizen or to to to be a a Visa legal Visa or whatever should we kick that person out the folks that we're serving sir are trying very hard to navigate that LE process it's often a seven-year wait for a court date when they arrive to this country so part of it is the backlogged administrative border every month under President
▶ 2:10:00Biden at least the statistics I have 30 to 40,000 people what are called Goda ways came across the southern border didn't ask for Asylum didn't ask for anything do you believe that people who just come across that way should be escorted out of the country or do you believe just because they ran between the designated checkpoints that they as the result get to stay here forever again so we're serving folks who are seeking Asylum or have status tempor
▶ 2:10:31protective status you wouldn't even know that cbp1 okay next mayor uh Mayor Johnson Bud from Chicago what do you think should we have an immigration law in this country or should anybody who comes here just be able to stay here I do support the bipartisan legislation that was passed out of the senate for comprehensive immigration no that's not answering the question right now people are breaking the law do you believe the United States should have an immigration law as far as I know every country in the world has an immigration law maybe there's one outlier or
▶ 2:11:01something do you and we have laws in the United States do you believe if people come here and break the law that they should be escorted out you or do you believe they just get to stay here forever our immigration system is broken we have not had comprehensive immigration reforms 1986 may I may I answer fully yeah yeah his time's expired but feel free to answer do you want mayor woo to answer your question or are you f yeah okay yeah yeah go ahead yes thank you
▶ 2:11:31Congressman yes I do believe we need cities everywhere clearly need an immigration law that has secure borders comprehensive and and consistent compassionate Pathways to residency and citizenship resources to adjudicate the complexities of the law and at the same time time I do not support Mass deportation that would be devastating for our economy and there are millions of people who are running our small businesses
▶ 2:12:02going to our schools okay uh thank you chair chair recognizes uh and and I must add I don't think anyone's calling for Mass deportation but uh chair recognizes Mr Garcia wa what from California thank you well thanks Mr chairman I want to thank all of our Witnesses for for being here today uh before I came to Congress I was the mayor of Long Beach California for eight years it's a diverse city of about half a million people so I appreciate the work that Mayors do um as mayor
▶ 2:12:32I signed the Long Beach values act to protect all of our residents including immigrants and undocumented residents we set up justice funds to support people that were facing deportation defending immigrants in court these are policies that are strongly supported uh by my residents back home because they are good for all the community and make Long Beach safer now we also know that immigrants make our communities vibrant and thriving places to live the facts are that Sanctuary jurisdictions or jurisdictions that welcome immigrants are overwhelmingly
▶ 2:13:02safer than non Sanctuary jurisdictions that's actually a fact immigrants both documented and undocumented are also less likely to be incarcerated or to commit crimes than native born people we know this to be true again these are facts and Mayors have every right to pursue the policies that you know are best for your residents now the Trump Administration has threatened to prosecute some of the Mayors on the panel today and force him to comply with his extremist agenda but however mayor Adams you are in a different position
▶ 2:13:33you of course are already facing serious criminal charges and mayor Adams I assume that you are not going to commit perjury today and I do believe though that you have an enormous amount of issues facing you ahead of you and it means your criminal charges are absolutely relevant to us to today bribery wire fraud willfully and knowingly conspiring to commit offenses against the United States mayor Adams you of course deny these corruption charges against you is that correct uh
▶ 2:14:04yes uh yes Congressman thank you now I understand that you are proven innocent unless you are guilty but you also have sir a trust problem four of your Deputy Mayors have resigned now this is serious and Republican prosecutors agree that the evidence against you as Ironclad yet Trump's doj moved to drop these charges now I just want to be and show this I want to be just really clear and show this here now look at how the Trump appointed acting us attorney who is Prosecuting
▶ 2:14:34you described it because the law does not support a dismissal and because I am confident that Adams committed the crimes with with which he is charged I cannot agree to seek a dismissal now this is a Conservative Republican who resigned When Donald Trump pressured her to drop the charges and we know the Trump Administration demanded that the charges be dropped and this is key they will be able to refile them against you Mr Mayor at any time I think
▶ 2:15:04personally that's why you sat next to the architect of family separation on Fox and Friends now Tom Homan sat next to you and said the following and I quote getting on Riker's Island is a is step one we're working on some other things that we don't really want to talk about on open air because the city council will be putting roadblocks up on us the mayor and me have a have a commitment to several other things now this was you of course and Mr homman the architect of family separation this is also Inc Inc
▶ 2:15:34incredibly concerning Mr Mayor you sat next to him you smiled you badmouth your own city council now Mr Mayor we have a right to know if the Trump Administration has actually coerced you into agreeing to anything and mayor Adams I also want to be very clear are you selling out New Yorkers to save yourself from prosecution uh there's no deal no quit Pro and I did nothing wrong and anything dealing with this case at a deference to judge hoe who's now
▶ 2:16:04addressing it I'm going to refer to his actions well Mr Mayor it appears to me at least that you are selling New Yorkers out it appears that you are working with with Tom Homan who is clearly clearly focused on family separation and deportations and harming New Yorkers and others across the country now every other mayor on this panel is pursuing legal and effective policies that benefit our residents and their communities their policies actually uphold Public Safety now I personally agree with the majority of New Yorkers
▶ 2:16:35and think Mr Mary that you should resign you should do the right thing you should step down and resign today and with that I yield back would my friend yield with my friend yeld I yield yeah Mr Mayor I want to be really clear were you pressured in exchange for the dropping and dismissal of criminal charges in your indictment to cooperate with the Trump Administration on all fronts with respect to immigration did any such
▶ 2:17:05conversation take place I think I was extremely clear I cannot hear you sir I think I was extremely clear no quit proquo no agreement I did nothing wrong but serve the people of New York City thank my for yielding CH chair now recognize Mr cloud from Texas thank you chairman thank you Witnesses for being here you know we are indeed a nation of immigrants I have to look no further than my own children who are the inheritance
▶ 2:17:36of both my ancestors who got here in the 1600s was William Pinn or my wife who got here uh when we got married um I think that's really what this nation is about but you are not here today because of legal immigration you are here because of illegal migrants who have been sent to our country in your opening statements there was a DEA linguistic shell game that you play to try to conflate Legal immigration with people who are
▶ 2:18:06coming here illegally uh and we're Savvy to that uh you are here because each of you ex with the exception Mr Adams have said in some form or fashion that you will not honor ice detainers in other words that when you have people in custody and is says we need to come arrest that person because they're here illegally that we will not honor that that's why you're here no one's asking you to go round up criminal aliens we are asking you to take people who are already in your custody and hand them over to Legal federal
▶ 2:18:36law enforcement now what this does is it saves US taxpayer money uh it it keeps from a greater presence of ice and federal law enforcement in your communities because if you're releasing them it takes more people as as uh chairman Jordan mentioned to go in and to rearrest that person and it puts the lives of law enforcement in danger this used to be a bipartisan issue as a matter of fact groups like The KO Institute called President Obama the deporter and Chief and Mr chairman
▶ 2:19:06I'd like to submit for the record a KO uh article that said President Obama deporter in- Chief is the title of it so why we have to ask is suddenly the left not embracing policies that Obama supported uh we can look to last night where it seems to be Trump derangement syndrome where uh the left could not seem to applaud kids fighting cancer a first lady an accomplished immigrant in her own rights where traditionally we have applauded and recognized and honored the families for the
▶ 2:19:36sacrifice many of them are this is the the the president's issue and they they're kind of along for the ride it was odd I thought that they applauded sending more money to the Ukraine but not peace for Ukraine uh and so uh it brings us back to why we're here and why this is a a partisan issue all the sudden it boggles the mind now Mayor Johnson you seem to want to talk about Texas so I'm from Texas let's talk about Texas first of all have you been to the southern border I've been to Texas
▶ 2:20:07but I have not been exactly to the southern border okay uh you you seem to talk about Governor Abbott and sending buses to your city now I can understand the concern with that but I will also let you know that Texas did not ask for the Biden Administration to open the borders and send an exponential amount of people that have affected your city into our state and you should know that no one forced them to go to your city the reason they selected your city is because you have said it's
▶ 2:20:37a sanctuary City uh the everyone was asked where they wanted to go before they got on the bus no one asked them to get on the or told them forced them to get on the bus they did it of their own free will and they were sent to your city because of your stated claim to be a sanctuary City now uh one thing I tell you having toured the facilities is that I've been to those facilities under the bid Administration where there was a map on the wall and you could see the migrants kind of pointing out which city they wanted to go to and I can also
▶ 2:21:07tell you from having been through the immigration process with my wife there's a difference between people coming here legally and then people who are when I've been at the ceremony where the people are crying with tears as they take the oath of citizenship to come to this country is far different than people coming across our border waving the flags not trying to assimilate into the United States culture and sometimes bringing crime into our communities this is an issue now each mayor I want to ask you one of the issues recently is how much FEMA dollars have gone to
▶ 2:21:37support migrants and hotel rooms in your communities mayor Adams do you know how many FEMA dollars has spent in your city uh uh $80 million and I've been to the border and I saw those Maps pointing to New York thank you uh um mayor Johnston uh thank you uh Congressman I know we do have some federal dollars that have to get back to in the exact amount it's roughly 32 million uh mayor 38 million uh Mayor Johnson I don't have the exact numbers it's 32 million I
▶ 2:22:07I don't have the number I'd love to love to know 29 million so understandably uh citizens are concerned about that their taxpayer dollars that are supposed to be going to disaster relief for them and their communities going to illegal aliens do you agree each of you yes or no question I have a couple seconds uh do you recognize that is against the law to Harbor criminal aliens gentlemen times exir but please please answer the question mayor Adams uh yes reading federal law correct I do recognize that and we
▶ 2:22:37do not do that the city of Chicago does not Harbor criminals yes we follow the laws Mr chairman I have a unanimous consent request proceed um I would ask uh to enter into the record uh two articles one uh talking about President Trump putting Mass deportations to the heart of his campaign during the c campaign and just last night Trump viles to use US military for Mass deportations without objection to ordered thank the chair chair recognize Mr Frost from Florida thank you Mr chair
▶ 2:23:08so the year 1969 my abela Zena my grandma Yaya um gets a call and her my mother Marissa my Aunt Sandra and my grandpa Pepe have to go to a plane within 24 hours because they've been approved to come to the United States they came here as refugees in 1969 during the freedom flights from Kuba for their new life in accordance
▶ 2:23:39with the promise of this nation ice arrested hundreds of US citizens during Trump's first term again in the last few weeks Isis detained native Native Americans a teenage girl Nicaragua Puerto Ricans a Puerto Rican military veteran all legal residents but all who fit the description I bet someone like my grandma would have fit the description
▶ 2:24:09too maybe even myself Trump's borders are went on TV enraged about Americans studying up on their constitutional rights during interactions with ice agents it was one of the most despicable things I've seen and the question is why is he so upset that people know their constitutional rights to the point where this Administration has moved to try to intimidate members of Congress for trying to educate their constituents to know their rights why don't
▶ 2:24:39they want people to know their rights well because if we know what our rights are we'll also know when Trump tries to take them away Mr Beer why are such outbursts from this administ ation alarming as threats to our rights and Liberties well you think about what we've heard about detainer requests I I have documented over 155 US citizens who've been targeted by detainer requests and they want to say we're going to just take the take the discretion away from state and local governments over detainer
▶ 2:25:09requests even in the case where someone is clearly a US citizen here's my birth certificate doesn't matter they're going to disregard it and so yes I I am well aware of the threat this Administration poses to come so from what we SE the last few weeks should American citizens should people with legal permanent residence in this country be also scared of this Mass deportation campaign for themselves and their own children oh absolutely the the birthright citizenship order is the most egregious but it doesn't stop there they want to take away people's citizenship and people's rights
▶ 2:25:40uh regardless whether they're citizens or not thank you mayor woo Boston has been named the ninth best city for quality of life in the entire country congratulations I would argue with that okay if trunks if Trump succeeds in forcing you to redirect your city's budget and Personnel to help with ice raay in this Mass deportation campaign how would that affect quality of life for your people first that is against the laws in Boston and in Massachusetts but I've heard from so many community members including residents who are immigrants who are citizens
▶ 2:26:10that they are terrified and that means when people don't feel comfortable reaching out to call 911 when they need help when survivors of domestic violence don't feel comfortable reporting or giving information it makes all of us less safe even those who aren't immigrants this culture of fear is bad for the safety of our people Donald Trump's immigration raids are also traumatizing and destabilizing of course all Americans but especially children and kids being a kid in America is
▶ 2:26:40hard enough making good grades going through more school shooter drills and fire drills and now Trump wants to send armed ice agents into their class classrooms to rip children from the school desk as they're trying to learn mayor Johnston my colleagues are laughing about that I don't find that funny what would a school day be like for a kid in your city when I suddenly bangs down on the door and abruptly grabs their teacher or one of their friends thank you sir I was a teacher and I was
▶ 2:27:10a school principal before I did this job so I knew that our school was often the safest place that kids came uh and they knew there they could learn they could get support they get access to service and many of our kids come from mixed status families they don't know their status they don't know their mom's status or their dad's status so I've had families before who have pulled their kids out of school kids who were citizens because they were worried that somehow their kids were in danger because they didn't know who was being taken and so for us the fastest way to make a city unsafe is to have kids not feel safe in their own schools
▶ 2:27:40see they want everybody to live in fear of undocumented people that is what they want to do but I'll tell you when I'm in my district and I do roundtables I've done them with kids in elementary school and I asked them what they want us to do they want us to ban assault weapons they want they say what they're actually scared of is being shot to death and dying in their schools and because of actions that the Democratic Administration took the Biden Administration with Congress gun violence has gone down in Denver 24%
▶ 2:28:1125% Chicago 40% down homicides in Boston this works gun violence went up 45% under Trump so when they're in charge more people die when they're in charge we are actually less safe and I think that's an important thing that we of to keep in mind as they try to scare us um in terms of immigrants who are living in this country thank you and I yield back chair recognize Mr Palmer from Alabama thank you Mr chairman I thank
▶ 2:28:41the witnesses for being here I just want to respond again about crimes committed by people here legally every crime committed by someone in the United States illegally is a crime that would not have been committed lancol Riley Ruby Garcia Rachel Moren JN neray the woman set on fire in the New York subway these are all assaults rapes murders and other crimes that would not have taken the lives of these people if those people were not here
▶ 2:29:11illegally they were given Safe Harbor now I want to ask you something you all took an oath of office uh Mr Adams did you swear to uphold uh the Constitution of the United States uh yes I do how about you uh Mayor Johnson yes sir I did how about you mayor the other Mayor Johnson yeah the Constitution of the United States as well as the constitution of Illinois okay and mayor yes you did are you familiar with the supremacy clause any of you yes sir I am okay then under the supremacy
▶ 2:29:41clause you understand that the laws of the United States take precedent over the laws of Colorado over the laws of Illinois over the laws of Massachusetts and in your cities do you understand that yes sir I do but when you declared your cities Sanctuary cities you did so illegally do you understand that respectfully sir I would disagree with that we follow you're disagreeing with the law it's against the law to give Sanctuary to people who have committed felonies and and it's a felony to cross the border illegally you gave Sanctuary
▶ 2:30:11to people who are here illegally you violated your oath to uphold the Constitution because of the supremacy clause the laws of the United States take preference take they thank and and but you didn't do that there is uh thank you sir there there's no part of our city law that violates federal law no part of the practices or Services we've provided that VI did you personally could did you personally violate the law then by giving Sanctuary somebody gave these people Sanctuary you declared your city the Bost city of Boston was declared a sanctuary City by
▶ 2:30:43mayor being a sanctuary city as you describe it or being a city as we describe it that's home for everyone does not it means that if you commit a crime accountable people who are here illegally and when you interfere with the with the officers of the law who are who are there to to even remove people that you know have committed crimes you have violated your oath of office you've committed a crime Mr chairman I don't understand why we haven't been discussing
▶ 2:31:13obstruction of justice I mean get real about this we have a problem in in the country with with the people who have come here illegally and I I just gave you a few names of people who have been raped and murdered there are numerous others there's there's a a whole organization established call remembrance to remember the people who who have been assaulted raped murdered in this country
▶ 2:31:43because certain cities certain officials decided to give Sanctuary to people who came here illegally and committed these crimes goes all the way back to Kate steinley San Francisco shot by someone who was illegally she would still be alive today she died in the arms of her father so I again I want to I want to know if you understand the supremacy clause that the laws of the United States
▶ 2:32:13are Supreme over your whatever your opinions might be of what the laws are sir I I do recognize that we do follow that I want to clarify that we actively aggressively pursue any known criminal in the city and we actually partner with federal government to do that if there's someone with a Criminal warrant we're searching for them we have Federal task forces we're partners of to uh to break up gang activity we do that for drug trafficking we do that on armed robberies so we are in partnership with the federal government on many issues around mayor Adams is being attacked because he's agreed
▶ 2:32:44to cooperate with Federal officials to uphold the laws of the United States I haven't heard any of you in defense of that we are absolutely upholding the laws of the United States we do it every day and we will continue to do it I just think we need to do a deeper dive into this Mr chairman if it were up to me I I I mean I'd be considering referring charges I think we we we've got a problem here when we decide that there's some laws that we will obey and some laws that we we won't I don't care who it is Republican Democrat
▶ 2:33:15I don't care what office you hold we need to abide by the laws passed by will the gentleman yield no I will not yield Mr chairman I I thank you for the time I yield back gentleman yields back we're going to have we're going to we're going to have two more we're going to have two more questioners then we're going to have to take a break at the request of the witnesses a 15minute break uh maybe 20 if we if we need that but uh chair recognizes uh Mr casar and after him then Mr higginson will proceed
▶ 2:33:45with the break but Cher recognize Mr good morning good morning morning mayor woo can you tell us a little bit just maybe 20 seconds about how your Administration has helped address Unemployment especially amongst youth in your city which we know is a risk when we have high levels of uh young people unemployed we made a commitment our mayor's guarantee that any young person in the Boston Public Schools who wanted a paid summer job would get one and we fulfilled that with the partnership
▶ 2:34:15of businesses and companies and organizations throughout the city record numbers participating thank you mayor woo Mayor Johnson can you tell us a little bit about measures your office have implemented to address the root causes of violence in Chicago thank you for that question yes so first of all it's great to report that violence is down in the city of Chicago and it has gone down since I've been in office as a result of a couple of measures one we've reopened three mental health clinics um because we do know that
▶ 2:34:45mental health um issues and we are in a very severe mental health crisis we've also increased the number of Youth Employment um we have hired almost 28,000 young people for last summer uh this year we have an opportunity to hire up to 29,000 young people we've also built more um homes uh just last year we've appropriated 11 billion 37,000 construction jobs um in the works for almost 10,000 more affordable units and we have promoted and hired
▶ 2:35:16200 detectives um to increase um Trust between community and law enforcement to solve the crimes that do occur in our city thank you so much Mayors I want to thank you for the hard work you're doing every single day just in 40 seconds you have described building tens of thousands of homes for people that need them hiring detectives to solve cold cases building Community Trust to reduce violence hiring people to do incredible mental health work and reducing the youth
▶ 2:35:46unemployment rate that is so much more than what the Republican majority can ever describe having ideas about and that's why they've dragged you before us today they want to point the finger at you because they have no plan on how to address housing no plan on how to reduce costs no plan on how to actually reduce violence in our communities in fact maybe some of the only plans they have would be to make those issues worse and I know that you all as Mayors are doing one of the hardest jobs in this country every single
▶ 2:36:16day you're serving your communities honorably and they don't want the American people to hear about how Boston has drastically dropped your unemployment rate they don't want to hear they don't want the American people to hear about how Chicago is dropping the rate of violence in the city but our job is to make sure the American people actually hear the truth and the truth is that you are pairing a law enforcement response along with a mental health response and a housing response and a jobs response to what's going on in your
▶ 2:36:47cities uh and that is so critical Republicans on the other hand here are going back to the same old tactic which is to say find a vulnerable group of people and let's blame them for everything that we can anything bad that happens let's go try to point the finger at our political opponents or at a vulnerable person or at a person of color from a far away place and that doesn't actually solve real issues for the American people Republicans and their big boss donors blame immigrants for low wages because they don't
▶ 2:37:17want the American people to see the Republic plan to dismantle the nlrb to dismantle unions and to never pass a bill raising wages for American workers they blame immigrants for housing costs because the Republicans are dismantling the Department of Housing and Urban Development and stripping affordable housing funding from this country they want to distract from the 8 million dollar a day that people like Elon Musk get in federal contracts while they attack hardworking immigrants
▶ 2:37:47and while they attack officials that are just trying to do their jobs uh Mayor Johnson you have a limited number I suppose of jail cells in Cook County and a limited number of law enforcement resources is that correct that is correct and I do not have jurisdiction over Cook County jails and you want to make sure that when somebody in the city of Chicago calls 911 that they get an appropriate response is that correct that is correct and
▶ 2:38:17so what I have been hearing all morning for my Republican colleagues is they want the federal government to go tell the city of Denver or the city of Boston or the city of Chicago no they want the federal government to be able to call you and take over your police resources or take over your County's uh jail resources and you don't even represent the county for whatever case they might come up with the person's dangerous or not instead of having cities determine if somebody is dangerous and needs to be held instead of having cities say we want to make sure if
▶ 2:38:47you have an emergency that we get somebody to you and don't just send out our police to a call that may not be a priority just because somebody in the federal government wants to go after somebody with no criminal background and that isn't a threat and so uh with that Mr chair chairman right before I yield back I just want to thank people that are involved in local government City Council Members neighborhood associations Mayors the people who keep our cities running you deserve our support in making your cities more
▶ 2:39:17safe you deserve our support recogniz Mr hiin from Louisiana thank you Mr chairman let's clarify for America mayor Adams Mayor Johnson mayor Mayor Johnson and mayor woo are are you here today under the advice of council and do you have Council present yes or no uh I want to understand a question are we are you here today on the advice of council and do you have council presid do have Council
▶ 2:39:47presid I'm here because uh we were requested to appear did did you consult with did you have councel prior to your appearance uh yes we did thank you this is this not a trap question we just want to clarify okay here under the advice of council do you have council president yes sir council president here because I was invited did you counsel before your your trip here we are we do have councel but I was from your councel yes okay then you're under the advice of councel yes mayor will
▶ 2:40:17thank you did just clar clarify for America these Mayors are all Sanctuary Mayors but the narrative is no longer comfortable because three months ago we were at the tail end of four years of millions and millions of elal coming into our country was out of control the only thing that has happened since then is we had an election in November and now we we we're not pulling the curtain back
▶ 2:40:48we have ripped the curtain from the rods we have revealed to America just how fast we could have secured our border if you had an executive that was willing to enforce the law so now we're paying attention to our municipalities and there and every one of them is lawyered up they've changed their narrative we got example after example the mayor Chicago we must lead
▶ 2:41:18with and live by the promise of sanctuary city mayor Denver willing to go to jail defense of sanctuary City policy the list goes on but the the policies of these Mayors and our previous president have consequences real life consequences I have a family here today Mr chairman who lost their beautiful loved one this young man was killed by an illegal
▶ 2:41:48immigrant in Texas said never should have been in our country he'll never be here to raise his daughter and Marie to love and cherish and honor and uphold his beautiful wife Olivia and you Mays have you have responsibility not just to your communities and the citizens just want to serve but by extension to the entire Republic and let me
▶ 2:42:18clarify I was a cop for a long time to honor the jurisdictional authority of another law enforcement agency you do it every day in your city guaranteed every one of you if you have an inmate in your city on City charges and that inmate has a has a felony warrant from a neighboring County or another County in your state and that County contacts your city
▶ 2:42:48while you have that inmate in detention you and ask you to hold them for them to come pick it up at a porn release guaranteed you release that inmate to your to the county over or to your state police but you're not doing it for ice and ice is responsible to remove millions of criminal hard Edge criminal illegals from our country and we've had enough
▶ 2:43:19America is fed up with this betrayal of oath and you'll be held accountable one of you said you're willing to go to jail we might give you that opportunity good mayor one of my colleagues mentioned the children always want to talk the children separation of children you and on at any given time in America there's 750 to 850,000
▶ 2:43:51American citizen parents of minor children incarcerated in our country if you commit a felony in America you get arrested and prosecuted and convicted and incarcerated you can expect to be separated from your children but let me say there's a sunset to that separation cuz when you do your time you'll be released you can return to your family this young man will will never return to his family
▶ 2:44:21and he should have never been removed from his family if we had a president and heads of our municipalities that were willing to uphold the federal law that exists America is moving into a new era of enforcement of our own laws welcome to it Mr chairman I yield very good Mr chair I have unanimous consent uh this is an article from
▶ 2:44:52wired it is February 18th of 2025 us funding cuts are helping criminals get away with child abuse and human trafficking Services supporting victims of online child exploitation objection to ordered thank you so much uh at the request of the witnesses the committee will take a 20 minute break pursuant to the previous order the chair declares the committee in recess for 20
▶ 3:07:46for e
▶ 3:08:46m e
▶ 3:09:30we need one more by per Miss okay here go the committee will come back to order chair recognizes Miss Lee from Pennsylvania for five minutes thank you Mr chair so we've heard a lot of accusations and sensationalism thrown around here today which is not new for this committee but I
▶ 3:10:00do think we need to be clear about what we're really talking about today and what the so-called Sanctuary City policies actually mean what Republicans are calling Sanctuary cities it simply means that a city or a state is not going to do the job of ice for them that's it Republicans are acting like there's like a mythical barrier that keeps ice completely out of cities if you're listening to Fox News they make it seem like their police at the borders of Chicago keeping
▶ 3:10:30ice agents out and that's simply not the case Republicans want every town city state to dedicate their limited resources to entering what's called a 287g agreement with ice to either do their enforcement work on the ground or hold people in custody for an additional 48 Hours on detainers that's 48 Hours beyond the lawful detention to be clear that is illegal in more than 700 counties in at least nine states there are policies or Court decisions limiting these ice detainers
▶ 3:11:01as it is such a blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment and when people's Fourth Amendment rights are violated it's the cities not ice who face civil lawsuits as a reminder to Republicans the fourth amendment is the one against unlawful searches and seizures just last year New York City's Department of Corrections had to pay $992.5 million in the settlement to those they unlawfully detained for ice Republicans are putting these Mayors between a rock and a heart place and the
▶ 3:11:31reason that they're doing this is because Trump is trying to get them to do illegal things if they work for ice they risk violating their own residents constitutional rights and opening themselves up to costly litigation but if they don't do Trump's bidding they're being threatened with losing Federal funding today's hearing is nothing more than a Shakedown against the mayors of some of our nation's biggest cities and a part of Trump's ongoing anti-city Crusade and Trump's America if you disagree with his priorities then you lose federal dollars just last week Donald Trump actually
▶ 3:12:01called city leaders who oppos his cruel policies sick politicians just a few days before that his borders are Tom homman threatened that he would be bringing hell on the city of Boston mayor woo what do you think about these threats against Boston and their attempts to force you to enact policies that are against the very things your constituents voted for the laws are most important and the safety of our residents are most important and what I hear from all of our residents across every one of our neighborhoods is that in fact undermining the trust is
▶ 3:12:31what would make our city less safe and so we need everyone to feel secure in their communities like they can reach out they can call 911 when they need help and in our city those laws actually help Boston police solve crimes thank you Mr Beer I a question for you I'd always thought that my Republican colleagues were strong supporters of uh state and local sovereignty and were against intrusion from the federal government do you think these all this this lawsuit seems consistent with that position
▶ 3:13:01oh absolutely not if you look at the Supreme Court precedent on this it came from a gun control law that said that state and local governments had to cooperate with the federal government on gun control the Supreme Court said that's unconstitutional not not a single member on this side I believe would be uh against that Supreme Court decision there is nothing illegal about protecting people's constitutional rights and due process education and equal treatment under the law but it is illegal for the federal government to
▶ 3:13:31withhold federal dollars that these cities taxpayer dollars have gone towards Mayor Johnson Chicago ranks as one of the largest cities in the US and has the third largest metropolitan economy boasting a GDP of 860 million this makes it one of the most economically diverse cities in the nation correct that is correct would it be fair to say that your city generates billions in taxpayer revenue and that the average taxpayer in Chicago in Illinois contributes more than around 20,000 in federal income taxes which is more than $1,310
▶ 3:14:02above the national average that is absolutely correct so can we conclude that Chicago residents pay significantly more in taxes than they receive in return contributing at least $5 dollar in taxes for every $1 do they get back in federal uh support more than our fair share thank you only nine states have taxpayers that contribute more to the federal government than they receive all four of our Mayors are from States on that list yet Republicans are saying that they should lose that money because they don't agree with their dear leader Trump and Republicans
▶ 3:14:32are attempting to take money from Blue cities and blue States and give them to their red States Republicans too often demonize blue areas and cities that are the very areas that are keeping the economy going the attacks we've heard on Mayors today are not only shameful they're dangerous capitulation to the impulses of this president who is trying to expand executive power nearly every direction I like to thank our Mayors uh woo Johnson and Johnson for coming in today having the strength of courage to stand up uh to this Administration thank you I yell back chair recognize is the gentleman from Arizona
▶ 3:15:02Mr Bigs thank you Mr chairman so uh mayor Adams you've agreed today sorry over here you've agreed to today that New York is a New York City is a sanctuary city is that right uh based on the definition and and there doesn't seem um Congressman there's no uniform definition of that but yes right but but that's what you've proclaimed mayor Johnston you've previously uh also declared that you're a you're a sanctuary city mayor Johnson you said you're that Chicago must lead with and live by the promise to
▶ 3:15:32be a sanctuary city mayor W you said Boston police and other departments cannot cooperate with ice when it comes to detaining on civil warrants of course of course um I don't know what Mr John Mayor Johnston would uh Define it but I do know that uh The Honorable Mayor Johnson from Chicago they they call there's a a welcoming city ordinance and we've got uh Miss uh woo mayor woo who's referred to hers as a safe City that's really interesting to me um so
▶ 3:16:03when you when you are a sanctuary City you put limits on how much you're willing to cooperate with federal agencies efforts to remove illegal aliens um and your policies are then contravene federal law you you just do under title eight of the US code it says a federal state or local government entity or official may not prohibit or any may not prohibit or in any way restrict any government entity or official from sending to or receiving from the
▶ 3:16:33immigration Naturalization Service any information regarding excuse me information regarding the citizenship or immigration status of any individual yeah so when I look at your guys ordinances and I got them all up here and there they're really interesting stuff and uh uh Denver I think you guys I think you testified previously that you rely on the statuto section am I right of the of the state statute so let's let's just review this there is a distinction and some of you have made that Mayor Johnson of Chicago made this repeatedly
▶ 3:17:04and mayor W Boston did there's a distinction between criminal warrant and you say we cooperate on criminal warrant but there's two levels of cooperation at least there's a communication level and there's a passing the the the uh the the person off that's one that's one level with the criminal but the Civil the Civil level this what I want to talk about for a second because all of these ordinances communication and transfer of someone where there's a
▶ 3:17:34civil warrant now I know that all of you understand that a order is a civil order and that means none of you and none of your agencies within your municipalities are communicating or passing over someone where there's a ice detainer so I don't care how many times 1226 or whatever it was in seven years I don't care how many times you do it but
▶ 3:18:04if you're not doing it for civil orders then you're allowing people who have a removal order who've had due process because that's how you get it that's how you get a removal order you're allowing them to stay in the country you're in violated that violation of this law right here you are you're in violation of that law right there and you've got to start realizing what your what your criminal culpability is on that and that's that's really what we're talking about
▶ 3:18:34here so um you don't think that's harboring perhaps but let's talk let's take look at that next statute please next federal in conducting investigations and hearings immigration officers administrative law judges shall have reasonable access to examine evidence of any person or entity being investigated if you're holding someone back under even if it's under a civil warrant because
▶ 3:19:04that's what you said you're not going to participate in and you are preventing access to that person evidence you're in violation of this you you have criminal culpability under this and you'll notice there's no men men's rare requirement here this is it every one of you is exposed to criminal culpability here that's the that's the reality
▶ 3:19:34of it let's do the next one any person who knowing that a person is an alien knowing or in Reckless disregard now you got a coupable midle state here of the fact that an alien is come to entered or remains in the United States in violation of law conceals Harbors or Shields from detection or attempts to conceal Harbor or shield from detection such alien in place you'll notice it doesn't make a distinction that all of y'all want to make
▶ 3:20:05of criminal warrants versus civil you're all in violation of all three of these statutes you got criminal culpability I yield back gentleman yields back chair recognize Miss Randall from Washington State thank you Mr chair and thank you to our Witnesses for taking the time to be here today um you know I represent the northwest corner of the country though I did happily live in Boston for 10 years safely
▶ 3:20:35um and Washington state is proudly home to more than one million immigrants we know in Washington that our communities like yours are stronger because of immigrants we are fed because of immigrants we're able to take public transportation because of the work of immigrants we are able to work on building the affordable housing that we need because of immigrants we receive Quality Health Care because of immigrants but this Administration
▶ 3:21:06as we see over and over and over is more concern concerned with supporting families than supporting families their actions are rooted in ha hatred and fear and deliberate misunderstanding they say they want to lower costs but what their actions show us is the opposite immigrants Drive our economy the and this administration's Mass deportations have disrupted small businesses wreaked havoc on our communities all
▶ 3:21:36while families see their grocery bills continue to rise and worry about their healthare being ripped away my constituents are scared they're writing to us that they're afraid to go out in public send their kids to school go to the grocery store without two other members of their family or their neighbors with them there are dozens of families making emergency plans to make sure someone is legally designated to take care of their children if they are detained or deported and in fact our governor had to create
▶ 3:22:06additional policy to ensure that kids are not left alone when their parents disappear we've heard from beat far farmers and Wheat Growers and florists Christmas Tree farms Grocers and salal Harvesters that their businesses cannot continue without the support of immigrants we know that there is a huge economic impact to our families and our communities and mayor Adams
▶ 3:22:37per your testimony in 2021 on immigr immigrant New Yorkers you stated that including those who are undocumented immigrants in New York paid billions of dollars in taxes and contributed billions more in spending power to the New York economy is that true uh yes yes thank you so one can imagine if this Administration continues its mass deportation plans
▶ 3:23:07in cities across the country including New York it would have a significant impact on all economies m Mr Byer can you speak to what the economic impacts of mass deportation would mean for the US economy absolutely it'd be devastating you're looking at uh an instant recession if it was uh you know some magic wand you could wave to get rid of all these people like they want um that would be about a 7% drop in GDP that's
▶ 3:23:38uh well into the trillions of dollars in in Lost uh production of goods and services that benefit Americans and when you really think about it when it comes to the cities right it's not equally distributed across the country it's really these cities and some others that are going to be overwhelmingly impacted so those neighborhoods you're looking at a death spiral of economic activity uh when you remove so much of the population and of course we talk about just the people who are undocumented
▶ 3:24:08but their children their spouses all those people are going to be affected by mass deportation thank you so much and Mr chair with unanimous consent I'd like to um enter this New York Times article frustration grows inside the White House over pace of without objection so thank you so much and um you know this committee has been very interested in uncovering waste Fraud and Abuse and I'd like to um draw our attention to the ASMR deportation
▶ 3:24:39flight that the administration touted on their official social media channels um while previous flights deportation flights cost for about 10.5 hours uh $477,000 this military flight that was commandeered from its mission of National Security to take folks who were in um in detention centers already to a stopover in Guantanamo cost us
▶ 3:25:11$299,450 for the same flight my uh folks in my community who are stationed at Joint Base leis McCord are being diverted from their essential missions to go to guano to be layover stewardesses for this um this plan that's just for clicks it's just continu stir up media it's just to deliver on a promise that the president made and that he's worried that he will be accused of um letting his base down
▶ 3:25:41if he doesn't carry out thank you chair recognizes Miss mace from South Carolina thank you Mr chairman all of the Mayors here today are actively working to harm the American people you represent you all have blood on your hands I'm going to ask a series of yes or no questions today and I would like to remind all of you you are under oath I only want a yes or a no to my questions my first question do you
▶ 3:26:11acknowledge breaking into our country is a crime mayor Adams yes or no do you acknowledge breaking to into our country is a crime I acknowledge yes or no I acknowledge okay honorable Johnson he's not going to answer the question yes or no is breaking into our country against the law yes or no depends how you cross the border okay uh Mayor Johnson yes or no comprehensive immigration reform policies are what's necessary in May do you have a better answer than these gentlemen before you yes or no
▶ 3:26:41yes okay do you believe it's acceptable for illegals who commit heinous crimes times be released back into the public instead of being detained and deported mayor Adams yes or no anyone break account crime yes or no this is not hard yes or no anyone that break a crime should be detained okay mayor yes or no they should be deported okay mayor any individual that causes harm breaks the law should be held accountable this is why you have 6% approval rating because you suck at answering questions mayor
▶ 3:27:12woo yes or no anyone who's a public safety threat should be prosecuted my next question um when an illegal alien rapes a woman do you believe you're on the right side of History mayor Adams yes or no say that question okay mayor Johnston when a legal alien rapes a woman do you believe you're on the right side of History yes or no I will charge and prosecute them yes or no well okay you said you would go to jail didn't you Char Haring illegal aliens or something Mayor Johnson could you repeat your question
▶ 3:27:42please when an illegal alien rapes a woman do you believe you're on the right side of History could you clarify that question okay mayor woo yes or no no rape is obviously horrible why are you letting rapists back out on the streets of Boston that is not true that is not what's happening in Boston when an illegal alien molests a kid molests an underage kid do you pat yourself on the back for being compassionate mayor Adams it's despicable and he should Beed mayor Johnston I prosecute folks that commit crimes like that you guys
▶ 3:28:12let them out on the streets Mayor Johnson we arrest violent criminals in the city of mayor woo we investigate arrest and prosecute you guys don't sound very confident today um would your city honor an ice detainer on an illegal alien who rapes kids if one was issued today mayor Adams yes or no in conformance with law we will honor detainers Mayor Johnson if there's a criminal warrant we'll help them pick them up if
▶ 3:28:42there's no criminal warrant we'll honor a notification request Mayor Johnson criminal warrants we always cooperate with federal agents with a Criminal warrant mayor woo get a criminal warrant we will enforce a criminal warrant I'm talking about an ice detainer on an individual who's here illegal who rapes kids do you all hate Donald Trump more than you love your country mayor Adams I respect my president I respect my country yes or no you're having the hardest time today mayor Johnston I love
▶ 3:29:12my country yes or no I love my country Johnson as a son of a pastor I love everyone and this country mayor will I love my country and my city do you all uh are you all willing to go to jail for violating federal law Adams I'm not going to violate federal law so I don't have to worry about that mayor Johnston we don't violate federal law either you don't violate federal law we do not violate federal law is it violating federal law
▶ 3:29:42if you don't honor detainer requests from Ice absolutely abolutely not in fact the statute Congressman big shared we explicitly follow the statute says you you cannot prohibit city employees from sharing information about someone's status with the government we do not prohibit that do you love illegal aliens more than you love your fellow countrymen I love all the residents of the city and county mayor Johnston um are you willing to go to jail for violating federal law the city of Chicago complies with all laws oh I highly doubt that mayor woo we are not violating federal law
▶ 3:30:12mayor woo I have a last couple questions for you um do you believe that ice arresting a child rapist quote threatens everyone's safety end quote yes or no no does ice arresting a murderous MS-13 game mber threaten everyone's safety yes or no no I would like to hold up this quote of you where you say Isis efforts actually threaten the safety of everyone end quote Boston mayor Michelle
▶ 3:30:43Woo you're a hypocrite thank you Mr chairman I yell back on chair recognizes Mr chairman have unanimous consent request Mr chairman have unanimous consent request proceed I'd like to seek unanimous consent to enter into the record this article and I'll do this as a survivor of sexual violence myself this is from courts uh March 2018 uh without objection so ordered data from Texas shows that us born without objection so ordered we we've
▶ 3:31:13put it in the record I haven't entered it you have what Mr chair can I I have several articles I need to enter them let me just go ahead with the what the the articles are what they speak what what's the next T article let me proceed data from Texas shows that us-born Americans commit more rape and murder than immigrants listen this trend of you all trying to get thrown out of committee so you can get on MC is going to end we're
▶ 3:31:43not going to put up with ited M of this comme Frost and Mr reclaiming my time M pres I've been very have been very accomodating you Mr I take particular umbr as a survivor of sexual violence I will inser in record this is right thank you no no it is Mr Sub yam
▶ 3:32:14Mr chair yo you know the process of unanimous consent youve you are not recognized have several articles to enter into the record Mr subam if you don't go we're going to recognize Mr Timmons thank you Mr chair um I just wanted to bring up uh a bill that's going to be before the floor um hr32 a bill that would basically take away federal grants if the administration thinks you are a quote Sanctuary City uh which
▶ 3:32:44by the way isn't even very well defined uh I'm not even sure from reading the bill whether your cities or even Sanctuary cities to begin with i that's why that question may have been difficult for you to answer um but um I think what's been very interesting to hear is how well you've been able to um integrate and welcome uh immigrants into your communities into your city's economies and making the best out of a difficult situation I find that very impressive and um but I wonder to this uh to the Mayors here um you
▶ 3:33:14know Mr Johnston if you took away federal grants uh how' that affect uh public safety of your city would that improve would that make your city more safe or less safe if we took away federal grants from your city it would dramatically weaken Public Safety I mean we wouldn't be able to repair bridges that are falling apart it means we wouldn't be able to put kids in preschool or give Veterans Medical Care it would be catastrophic thank you Mr Johnson the same qu Mayor Johnson the same question it would certainly undermine all of the Investments that we've made thus far since I've been mayor we've you know provided 20 billion dollars of new Investments
▶ 3:33:45That Could that contribute to the overall safety of the city of Chicago mayor Wu same question would this make your city of Boston more safe or less safe withdrawing federal funds would make us less safe education makes us more safe housing makes us more safe and we we rely on those those funds and how did um let's take Mayor Johnson how did many of the immigrants come to your city you mentioned they came from Texas is that right that's correct Congressman they came on buses uh sent from Texas mostly from El Paso
▶ 3:34:15I I feel like we have the wrong people in the room today we have mayors of cities that are trying to do their best with the situation that they have and then we have governors in Texas and Florida who are busing Folks up to your cities and so you're trying to make the best out of this situation but uh somehow they're they're trying to make our immigration system worse in essence because they're taking the the folks that come over to their states and they're spreading them across the country and you're just trying to
▶ 3:34:45deal with that situation would you characterize it as that Mayor Johnson yes sir we're just trying to manage the crisis in front of us which is families being dropped off on our city streets in the winter with no cloes uh our calling is to make sure they're safe and how had the Trump administration's funding freezes and cuts would they undermine Public Safety and your city mayor Johnson uh they could dramatically undermine Public Safety in our city everything Mayor Johnson same question it certainly will undermine Community safety if the federal government undermines the investments in people of Chicago it would undermine our safety too so we're trying to make
▶ 3:35:16we're trying to make your cities more safe but there's a bill here in the name of making your cities more safe actually makes your cities less safe would you agree with that Mayor Johnson yes sir I would Mayor Johnson same question mayor woo same question and I think this bill is actually in a way extortion because you're basically trying to take away funding from a city if they don't do what the administration wants you to do um but you know let's talk about extortion for a minute uh mayor Adams I think everyone's a little bit concerned about the timeline of events that has led
▶ 3:35:46to your case being dropped and so mayor Adams did you meet with Tom homman on December 12th of last year yes did uh did President Trump say publicly that he considered pardoning you four days after that meeting uh yes or no I don't recall what the president said in regards to that meeting oh well he did um in January did you meet with President Trump at Mar Lago yes or no yes I did uh in this meeting did you talk about immigration for ment with the president
▶ 3:36:17talk about immigration in general uh what was that what did you talk about when it comes to immigration uh just how important is to secure the border and they were able to do so we saw a 90% decrease and I see that on my streets every day did you talk about your pending case with the doj uh no I do not so the the case did not come out have you ever talked about your case with the doj with the president uh no more than what you heard him on the trail say that he thought it was in I haven't heard much tell me have you T ever talked about the president
▶ 3:36:47and talked about your case in the doj with president yeah as I indicated uh previously I'm going say it again uh this case is in front of Judge ho and add a deference to him have you ever talked about your case with anyone in the Trump Administration I'm going to say this again this case is in front of Judge hoe and at a deference to judge ho he is going to determine the outcome of case that's not answering the question I'm going to ask you one more time have you ever
▶ 3:37:17talked about this case with anyone in the Trump Administration uh this case is from of Judge ho and at a deference to judge hoe judge ho is going to decide the outcome of this case I think mayor Adams is not answering the question because he probably has and I think there's a pretty clear timeline here that indicates that a case is being dropped in the name of trying to appease the president who seems to be okay with what's going on and so I look we can talk about the policy but I think there's a b ger problem here of public
▶ 3:37:47extortion and almost an endorsement of this extortion and it's becoming the norm for this Administration I yeld back chair recognize Mr Timmons from South Carolina Mr chairman before you do I have a unan unanimous uh consent request please m f you recognize thank you Mr chairman uh I have four articles I would like to enter into the record titled the mythical tie between immigration and crime undocumented immigrants half as likely to be arrested for violent crimes immigrants significant less likely to commit crimes and one titled
▶ 3:38:18showing data about us born citizens more likely to commit murder and Mr chairman uh I do ask that you do respect my colleagues on this side of the aisle um parliamentary um without objection so order your unanimous consents are are uh put into the record only titles are required and once you start filibustering you become out of order I am not filibustering I'm just saying the last member on your side was filibustering she was not she had she was
▶ 3:38:48now you're recognizes Mr Timmons from South Carolina thank you Mr chairman um I just want to speak directly to all four of the Mayors y'all did the best you could with bad situations you did the former president l in I don't even know what number to use some places use 8 million some people use 16 20 whatever the number is and so each of you had an influx of illegal immigrants into your cities and you have Federal state and local statutes that you have to deal with and
▶ 3:39:18an untenable situation was created I I want to go one by one um mayor Adams how many illegal immigrants were uh present in New York City in the last four years how many people did you have to deal with uh 230,000 all right so and that's 230,000 people that um were using your limited resources that American citizens are entitled to but you were actually required under local ordinance or under state law to provide services to them they're not supposed to be here they're not
▶ 3:39:49supposed to be here because we have borders borders supposed to matter mayor Johnston how many illegal immigrants did you have to deal with over the last four years thank you sir we had uh 42,000 newcomers arrive over 42,000 uh Mayor Johnson how many how many illegal immigrants did you have to deal with over the last four years over the last four years there were roughly 50,000 Asylum Seekers Bust from the state of Texas to the city of Chicago and you know why that Texas did that because 10 12 15
▶ 3:40:19million people were were in Texas and they had to deal with the same problem you did and they thought it was appropriate that everyone should have to share this burden mayor woo how many did Boston have over the last four years we don't ask about immigration status and giving services so I don't have that number many okay well we'll say at least tens of thousands so all of you have limited resources limited tax dollars to to spend to serve your community and there's people that have a disproportionate need and you have obligations to serve them more
▶ 3:40:49if they are struggling if they um do not have income if they are jobless so you have limited resources and all of you had this problem and we've been saying for the last four years that this is all because Joe Biden and his policies were allowing lawlessness at our Southern border which allowed millions of people into this country mayor Johnston did you say anything to the bid Administration did you say we're struggling we can't make ends meet we can't serve our citizens because of your open Southern border did you Mayor Johnson
▶ 3:41:20yes Congressman I did reach out to the bid Administration about that did you publicly address this did you ever challenge them and say this is ridiculous secure the southern border what we focused on Sir was the biggest challenge we were facing was folks needed the right to work they I could find any anything where you told the bid Administration they um are wrong for their border policy Mayor Johnson did you publicly attack the president uh President Biden in the last last four years because he let millions of people into this country and it hurt your
▶ 3:41:51constituents did you publicly attack him for his policies so I publicly called for did you say secure the damn border no I publicly called for Congress to pass comprehens of immigration okay we'll get to that in a second did you ever publicly attack the open border policies of the previous administration Congressman in fact we hosted the former Secretary of DHS in Boston so that he could see the impact to talk about how we need legislation I'm sure mayor Adams did you ever publicly attack
▶ 3:42:22Biden for his open border policy uh yes in addition to having $7 billion out of our tax did you see what his administration did to political opponents did you see what they did to uh president Trump did I mean I guess you're standing up for your people I I admire that um for the last four years I heard how Congress needed to spend tens of billions of dollars to secure the southern border we had to change policies we had
▶ 3:42:52to do all this nonsense we didn't need to do any of that we just needed a new president last month we had the lowest number of border crossings in decades and I can promise you this that's going to continue because our president has always had the ability to stop this and the only one of you that stood up to the administration was under investigation shortly thereafter weird how that
▶ 3:43:22happens we're turning the page here going forward each of you need to cooperate to the fullest extent of your ability with President Trump with ice with all federal laws to make sure that you can secure your people and stop spending billions of taxpayer dollars on people that do not deserve it your con constituents deserve those resources not the people that enter this country illegally with that Mr chairman I yield back gentlemen yield back chair recognize
▶ 3:43:53Miss anari from Arizona thank you Mr chair uh president Trump has talked a big game about how he wants to allegedly make our cities and communities safer he says he wants to get violent criminals off the streets and he thinks that mass deportations are the way to do it he sent ice and border patrol agents after our Native American communities parents and children and law fighing American citizens who are targeted simply because of the color of their skin or the language that they're speaking the chaos and the fear that this has
▶ 3:44:23instilled pits neighbor against neighbor creates more distrust in law enforcement and puts us all in danger mayor woo first of all congratulations on your baby what have you been hearing from communities in Boston are people fearful of engaging with law enforcement in Boston because our laws are what they are we have very strong relationships with our Comm community and that's why we've been able to continue making progress on being the safest major city in the nation but we do hear that people are afraid of the federal government and
▶ 3:44:53we it's including people who are immigrants but also US citizens that fear is widespread thank you perhaps most disturbing president Trump has diverted critical Homeland Security investigation agents to work on immigration enforcement that means they're no longer investigating violent crimes like human trafficking child pornography and the flow of fentol in our communities putting our entire country at greater risk that means fewer violent criminals pedophiles and Drug Runners being apprehended not more once again Republicans
▶ 3:45:23are making life easier for criminals at the expense of victims actually making our communities less safe Mr Beer question for you what effect do you think that assigning DHS agents to deportations is going to have on Public Safety well it's extremely negative effect and it's not just limited to DHS he's pulling in FBI ATF DEA they're all being diverted off their their primary missions to crack down on criminal gangs and criminal uh organizations in the United States so it's it's not
▶ 3:45:53just DHS it's every criminal agency in the United States government is being diverted to mass deportation right now the Phoenix police chief has stated we work with our federal Partners all the time to work on criminal issues not civil immigration issues that will continue to be the stance of the Phoenix Police Department I can tell you during my time on the Phoenix City Council I served on the public safety and Justice subcommittee I heard constantly from our police force that they are under saaff and need to focus their resources on violent crime
▶ 3:46:23but president Trump has also tried to force municipalities to divert their law enforcement Personnel to Aid in Mass deportations diverting City police to deportations would mean that our officers are spending less time investigating murders rapes and robberies now I want to shift to the economy mayor woo would you agree that local leaders and Public Safety officials who hear directly from constituents about Public Safety know better what your city needs to focus on
▶ 3:46:54than the White House does and also are you worried about ice raids and the impact that it will have for businesses and economic Prosperity yes our local community knows best and we can tell you in Boston over our history it has not been the word of presidents or Kings or presidents who think they are kings that set what happens it is our residents and Mr Beer Can you tell us more on what the economic impacts like food prices and housing costs of mass deportations would be and how this could affect a city
▶ 3:47:24like Phoenix about half the cost of uh the fruits and vegetables on your uh in your grocery store uh is coming from the Labor uh of immigrants and uh other workers at our farm so it's an extremely important component of uh of our agricultural production in the United States if you look at at where these people have gone they have gone into the sectors where there is no work visa there is no legal immigration option for employers to hire
▶ 3:47:54in these sectors that is why we had so many people come because of the labor needs of the United States thank you so much I truly want to thank the Mayors for being here um and taking on these ridiculous attacks on our local officials you know what is best for your communities and the people that you represent you know better than Donald Trump you know better than Tom homman you know better than St Miller so thank you so much and finally I'd like to request unanimous consent to enter into the record first a report published by the American Immigration uh Council titled
▶ 3:48:24Mass deportation devastating cost to America its budget and the economy and second uh a center for American progress report titled Trump's rash immigration actions Place cruelty and spectacle above security without objection to ordered thank you I yield back to the ranking member chair chair recognizing Mr Donald's from Florida thank you chairman uh this is my third term on the oversight committee we've been talking about illegal immigration and oversight
▶ 3:48:54the entire time I remember we had a group of this committee that went down to the El Paso section of the Border this was back in February March of of uh 2021 and during that time period we were at one of the holding centers and there were these buses that were coming to the Detention Facility and they were picking up 30 kids 50 kids at random walking out of the facility and when I went over to question the bus driver that was transporting
▶ 3:49:25these kids border agents told me as a member of Congress that you're not allowed to question the bus driver and of course people knowing me I didn't take no for an answer and I repeated the question and I was told that this bus of children was leaving El Paso and going to San Diego and so what was occurring under the Biden is that they were busing unaccompanied miners all across the United States for one reason and one reason only and that was because they did not want the press
▶ 3:49:55to see the pictures of kids in cages they did not want to see our borders being overrun they wanted to disperse that problem all through the United States that is The Reckless history of illegal immigration under Joe Biden and the Democrat Party mayor Johnston of you lamented earlier that uh there were 10 to 11 buses coming per day to your city did you ever talk to Joe Biden about why this was happening to your community uh
▶ 3:50:25thank you Congressman I both reached out to Governor Abbott from Texas uh he didn't respond and I did why would you reach out to Governor Abbott of Texas when it is Joe Biden the former commanderin-chief that opened up our borders why didn't you talk to him well our buses directly were being sent from Governor Aban in Texas so that was why we reached out to say we're happy to collaborate on a coordinated entry system we understand no one state or no one city should bear the entire brunt of this but let's collaborate but I did so I'm glad you I'm glad you said that because that brings me to my next Point Governor Abbott and Governor Dan santis when they started moving
▶ 3:50:56illegal aliens out of their states who were bearing the brunt of what Joe Biden and KLA Harris were doing and they've sent them to Denver they sent them to Chicago they sent them to to New York they sent them to Martha's Vineyard the reason why they did that is because you four could hide hide behind the realities of illegal immigration on Border towns all through our country and on cities and states who did not want to see illegal immigration but did not have the political
▶ 3:51:26representation to go to the White House and only when it showed up on your doorstep did you get upset mayor Johnston coming back to you how much did your city spend on illegal immigration do you have a round number uh over the last couple years on all newcomers whatever their status was it's around 79 million since 2022 79 million Mayor Johnson Chicago how much has the city of Chicago spent on illegal immigration if you refer into the 2022 up to 2024 of the buses
▶ 3:51:56coming from Texas roughly the same percentage of the State of Texas about 1% of our overall budget what is that because we I don't have the city's budget in front of me numbers it's 1% and if you want the actual calculation we can make sure someone you're the mayor you don't have the math in front of you it's 1% of the overall budget over the last four years you failing is number how much the city of New York actually spend on illegal immigration Mayor Johnson I already asked you you don't have a hard number and if you don't have a hard number you're not running your city well mayor Adams how much did the city of New York actually spend on illegal
▶ 3:52:27immigration 6.9 billion of taxpayers billion of taxpayer money on a problem that was fostered on the American people mayor woo in the city of Boston how much did you spend we don't ask about immigration status and delivering CI ask about how much money the city of Boston has spent on illegal immigration are you out of your mind between immigration status do you manage your budget or not mayor that is how we keep may do you manage your budget or not numbers to prove it I
▶ 3:52:57manage my budget I have a AAA Bond rating Da Back 10 years to the city of Boston just understand that your mayor does not care how much of your resources she has spent on people who are not ofon Mr Mr be I have a question for you because I understand perspective when it comes to Illegal immigration I understand that the KO Institute for a long time has had a standard of actually having open immigration into the United States generally speaking I don't want to get into spe specific we support legal
▶ 3:53:27immigration we want immigration to be legal so let me ask you this question because one of the great uh Libertarians of the modern era Milton Freedman famously said you can either have open Borders or a welfare state but you have to choose Mr Beer what do you choose Milton fredman said he wanted to allow illegal immigration to continue I disagree with Milton Freeman's position on that we should have legal immigration and build a wall around the welfare state not around the country that's in the best interest of taxpayers and I would argue
▶ 3:53:57that under the current system where you have Sanctuary cities popping up it is not possible to Build That Wall so America has to choose Mr Beer you're done America has to choose between securing our nation or protecting the taxpayer I choose secure the nation I yield back gentleman yields back recognizes Mr Bell from Missouri thank you Mr chair uh in the 80s there was the war on drugs that didn't go so well we essentially created classes of
▶ 3:54:28criminals for people citizens who just needed help and I won't recount that entire history uh but I don't think that we realize the error of our ways until it impacted more fluent communities particularly with the opioid and so now Republicans have began a new campaign a war on immigrants and while Republicans and Democrats both recognize the need to strengthen our borders instead of sitting down and actually fixing
▶ 3:54:58the Border situation as has been alluded to or actually we did that but then uh after supporting it Republicans voted against it after uh their boss told them not to um which really would have been a win for the American people so as a former prosecutor I recognize policing and Community relationships go hand in hand you have to have them in order to be effective uh with law enforcement and
▶ 3:55:28to get to get bad people off the streets who are not going to commit a crime in front of a police officer often times is it's it's our people in our communities who can help um get those uh people off the street by sharing and cooperating with law enforcement but that starts with trust and understanding as a former prosecutor limited resources we have to we have to be considerate of how we utilize those resources
▶ 3:55:59um and and and so my first question Mr Byron I'm gonna go quick because I want to try to get get to you all why will requiring a local police department to honor extra judicial ice detainers or risk losing Federal funding make our cities less safe well you're taking resources away from whatever the higher priority is so if you're talking about carrying out Mass deportation and having state and local police detain people who are not Public Safety threats then you're talking about
▶ 3:56:29in New York City they're spending $1,500 a day on a bed so that's $1,500 taken away from other Public Safety priorities and mayor woo and congratulations again as well you um and first you're welcome for for St Louis born and bred Jason Tatum you're welcome thank you thank you why is it in Boston's best interest to make sure people who are experience experiencing domestic violence or victims of violent crime feel comfortable coming forward to law enforcement
▶ 3:56:59with the knowledge that local police are not reporting them ties we need those who have information we need those who are victims and survivors of crime to know that they can come forward and get the help that they need and when that happens we keep everyone safer and many law enforcement agencies have articulated that their primary responsibility is to keep Community safe by focusing on violent crime and Public Safety threats however deputizing
▶ 3:57:30requires officers to take on federal immigration duties diverting resources and Personnel from their core Mission so when cities use their discretion and and Mr by this a quick question for you do you believe that this additional burden makes Community safer or does it risk overextending local departments at the expense of addressing serious crimes I think states are best position to answer that question it it certainly can if you're
▶ 3:58:00imposing a mandate that is distracting from their Public Safety Mission and it's interesting to note that the majority's bill on this hr32 has an exception written in there for Witnesses and victims of crimes if you don't report them it's it's okay under that bill except no one's walking around with a victim or witness uh badge on them so when a police shows up and responds to a call they don't know who's a witness or victim so the idea that you know you can just Cardon that off and and and put that to to
▶ 3:58:30the side doesn't uh hold up I appreciate that I'm just short on time and Mayor Johnson I want to I have two quick questions for you um and you can give them the weight that you decide to give them um first um um who has more World Championships the Cardinals or the um mayor Adams I don't want you in on that one uh can you tell us about the ways in which Chicago cooperates with federal law enforcement yeah thank you for that question violent crime in the city of Chicago is down it continues to go down on my leadership because of our investments having trust between
▶ 3:59:00community and police local police is attributed to that and our local police department uh um allies and cooperates with federal agents around human trafficking drug trafficking getting guns off the street getting gangs off the streets of the city of Chicago and it is work and the first black first lady in the history of Chicago is a Cardinals fan shout out to Hazelwood East hey that's my school thank you I you back to the ranking to and it's the Yankees no questions for you Mr H
▶ 3:59:30CH chair now recognizes Miss Luna from Florida mayor woo does the Boston trust act restrict communication with Federal immigration authorities regarding individuals immigration status yes or no we do not collect immigration status in law enforcement um I just like to point out and Mr chairman if I could enter the Boston truck trust act into the record Mr chairman without objection without objection to ordered thank you um on page or let's see section 4 AA um a law enforcement office
▶ 4:00:00official and employment of the city Department agency or commission shall not and then a inquire of an individual h on his or her immigration status um under title 8 us code subsection 1373 stipulates that local governments cannot prohibit or restrict communication with Federal immigration authorities regarding individuals immigration status so your enforcement of this act is in direct violation of that statute can you please confirm that is not thank you ma'am that's the US code I don't know about you but us code does not lie we do not ask
▶ 4:00:30about imigration status and that is what next question mayor Johnston you said in your testimony that the first step you took after illegal aliens arrived was to provide them with housing is that correct yes or no folks that were on the streets uh freeon death we gave access to shelter yes we did thank you um not to be rude here but you have a good understanding of what the definition of harboring is correct I do okay uh for those that might not harboring means to knowingly or recklessly provide shelter or place to stay for an illegal alien
▶ 4:01:01and according to title 8 of us code subsection 1324 that is also a federal crime um just to be clear did you also say that you would be willing to go to jail to stop deportation efforts uh I uh I did say that I'd be willing to stand up for all of our residents and uh the context was that was the point which the administration was threatening to deploy the US military to streets of our cities to pull kids out of schools and churches so we were worried about that thank you Mr Johnson uh Mr chairman I'd like to enter into the record an article from CBS
▶ 4:01:31without objection to ordered thank you um in this it says Johnson said earlier this week that he's willing to use Civil Disobedience and if necessary going to jail to stop deportations um my final question would for be for you Mr uh Mayor Johnson do you believe that Chicago's welcoming city ordinance encourages illegal aliens to enter the United States specifically into Chicago yes or no no okay um so you don't believe that banning the transfer of individuals into ice custody
▶ 4:02:01for the purpose of civil immigration enforcement encourages illegal immigration into Chicago or how about agencies sorry one second or agents not being able to stop arrest or detain individuals based solely on their immigration status or administrative warrant so we comply with all laws local state and federal to me after this line of questioning it's very clear that these policies that you have all implicated are active and alive and well in your cities are in direct violation with us title 8 code subsection 1324
▶ 4:02:32and is a federal offense but you all speak about a broken immigration system and yet here you guys are aiding and eding in that entire process I want to be very clear about something open border policies which is something that you guys are talking about hurts people on both sides meaning the people that are coming here illegally and then American citizens as well um I do not think you guys are bad people but I think that you are ideologically misled which is why unfortunately based on your response is I'm all going to be criminally
▶ 4:03:02referring you to the Department of Justice for investigation and as soon as I leave here these will be going over to Pam Bondi I'm not doing that to an effort to bully you guys but I do believe that your policies are hurting the American people and you can make that known with the evidence that you can present the Department of Justice but if you guys continue doing what you're doing you're not going to help anyone you're going to hurt more people and that's exactly why I'm tired of it the American people are tired of it and chairman I yield my time would would you yield your last minute yes sir
▶ 4:03:32mayor Adams you you were one of the first Mayors in what the media refers to as as a blue City typically that came out and and raised concerns about the influx of illegals pouring into the to the city of New York could you answer the question what what that did to New York City from a from a budgetary standpoint let's let's not even talk about crime or anything let's just talk about from a budgetary the burden
▶ 4:04:02on the citizens of New York City as I indicated uh Mr chairman uh we spent uh $6.9 billion and the long-term impact of that is extremely significant uh after Co we had a large number of children who was chronically absent we could have taken 200 million of that in dealt with that uh we have a real Mental Health crisis in our city we could have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on that and so the long-term impact of spending $6.9 billion do
▶ 4:04:33is going to have serious ramification on the future of New York City so it's more than just what happened last year or this year it is what is going to impact us long term and I think that's one of the purposes of this hearing to talk about the the uh from cities that have huge illegal alien populations so chair now recognizes Miss Presley from Massachusetts thank
▶ 4:05:03you Mr chairman mayor woo I am grateful for our longstanding partnership in public service I'm grateful uh to be your congresswoman as well as your constitu went uh can I get that time back all right uh again grateful for our longstanding partnership in public service grateful to be your congresswoman and grateful to be your constituent it's clear my colleagues across the aisle didn't do their homework because the fears and division they're trying to project on to Boston are really the stuff of Fox News
▶ 4:05:33fever dreams our city is vibrant our city is diverse our city is beautiful mayor woo immigration is Central to the economic success of Boston is it not absolutely all of our key Industries whether it's healthc care Life Sciences higher education Financial Services everything that we do depends on immigrant residents and the contributions that make thank you mayor well immigration defines Boston you know for
▶ 4:06:03Generations our city has been shaped by people who have endured incredible hardships to arrive at our Shores seeking a better life uh they uh drove tax open restaurants studied at our schools uh Built Homes repaired our roads and bridges cared for patients cleaned offices built businesses provided essential Early Education and child care for our babies there is no doubt immigration is essential to the success of Boston but there is in fact a dark
▶ 4:06:34threat looming over this great City that threat is the racist and xenophobic anti-immigrant policies coming from this Trump White House Mr chair I ask un consent to enter into the record this Boston Globe article titled they're going to deport us Trump immigration policies prompt some children to skip school without objection so ordered mayor well I've been uh speaking to principls and Educators in Boston at various uh roundtables and uh Town Halls that I've convened and the stories are
▶ 4:07:04heartbreaking elementary school children are crying in their teachers arms fearful that they're going to lose their parents to cruel and unjust deportation raids marw last week I met with an esteemed doctor from a local Boston Hospital who reported that followup appointments in her Clinic have seen a 200% spike in no shows and cancellations her assessment her patients are missing Critical Care like dialysis prenatal care and chemotherapy because of a fear of immigration raids in our hospitals and Health
▶ 4:07:34Care settings Mar wo do you agree with this health care provider absolutely we hear it from our shared constituents people are afraid and is having huge impact on their daily lives when they're just trying to do right and be a good example for their kids as they pursue the American dream Mr the ask unanimous consent to enter into the record this article titled fearful amid ice Crackdown some immigrants are skipping Health Care without objection to ordered so here we have a man who thinks he is King screaming anti-immigrant slurs
▶ 4:08:04from the Oval Office and what it has done to make Boston safer nothing not a thing but it has traumatized our kids cost our elders their dialysis delayed cancer patients chemotherapy and struck fear Into the Heart of hardworking people who not only contribute immensely to our city and our community but whose labor and contributions are also essential to the very functions of daily life in our great City the members of this committee would be well served by learning from our esteemed mayor but
▶ 4:08:35a teaching is not the charge of this committee remind my colleagues this committee's purpose is oversight the only person who has something to answer for is Donald Trump he is single-handedly decimating Decades of economic progress vilifying our immigrant neighbors and disregarding the Constitution and basic decency daily this man points to our most vulnerable scapegoats them for every hardship while he himself is actually the source of the hardship that the American people are experiencing
▶ 4:09:06my colleagues don't really care about criminality if you really cared about criminality you would do something about Elon Musk power grabs stealing our data you would do something about efforts to defund the National Institutes of Health cancer research if you really cared about criminality you would do something about people that want to Rob our babies of food make it make sense my Republican colleagues across the aisle believe a six-year-old from El Salvador who wants to go to school and a mom who fled violence in Haiti are the reason that the
▶ 4:09:36cost of eggs are too damn high and your housing and gas will follow suit surely because of these Donald Trump tariffs the shameful Republican ripoff slashing away basic government services to line the pockets of Donald Trump's buddies so they can buy toy yachts and rocket ships it is a shame and a sham America has a problem and it is Donald Trump if my colleagues really cared about criminality they would do
▶ 4:10:06something about him I'm grateful the people of Boston and my mayor stand with their neighbors from every Walk of Life I yield back chair recognize Mr Gil from Texas thank you Mr chairman for for holding this hearing on on such an important topic um Mayor Johnson I want to start with you one of your first actions as mayor was establishing a deputy mayor for immigrant migrant and Refugee Rights um I want to ask you a series
▶ 4:10:36of of questions if you could answer with a a yes or no answer that'd be great first of all do you support allowing illegal aliens to obtain licenses just yes or no so the city of Chicago has been a welcoming City for over 40 years I'll take that as a yes next question that's the policy that we will hold to do you support tax dollars subsidizing or paying for the health care of illegal aliens I support investments in all residents
▶ 4:11:06of the people of Chicago and that's what I do that that's yes as well do you support free or reduced college for illegal aliens again I support the Investments of all residents of the people of Chicago take that is a yes next question do you support allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections again I'm not over the jurisdiction of that type of law but again I'm committed to investing in all residents of the people of Chico I'll take that as a yes I've got an article from the Chicago Sun Times and
▶ 4:11:36I I'll quote here briefly Johnson proposed among other things that all residents regardless of citizenship set status be able to vote uh for Chicago Board of Education members next question your your website States and this is your campaign website quote I will not stop fighting until abortion access is completely secure for people all over the country end quote yes or yes or no do you support taxpayer funded abortions for illegal aliens I support the Reproductive
▶ 4:12:06Rights of all people all women take that as a yes as well your mayoral transition website mentioned support for creating a Chicago Board of Education noncitizen Advisory Board again yes or no do you support appointing noncitizens to government boards I was invited here today to discuss a welc yes or no I was invited here to discuss welcoming CI if you're interested in asking any questions about the welcoming City I'm happy to answer those questions no we're we're going to move on
▶ 4:12:37um as you know president Trump unlike the previous administration has taken serious ious action to bring foreign criminal gangs to Justice to take our our border back and to restore Public Safety in our communities he designated eight transnational criminal organizations and cartels as foreign terrorist organizations these are groups like trende araga MS13 sonola other of some of the most grotesque and ruthless and brutal
▶ 4:13:07organizations in the world you as mayor of a San uary City have been virtually giving favors to illegal aliens apparently you support an enormous amount of taxpayer resources going to them as well but you you yourself have also received a lot of gifts and for those of you who don't know um Mayor Johnson has a secret gift room that uh has is not given access to the public or from
▶ 4:13:38or for access to the office of Inspector General um I'd like to ask you couple questions about that do you know everyone who's given you a gift since you became mayor the city of Chicago has had a policy for 40 years where there are individuals that would like to give I'm going to take that as and we do not accept those them on I'm toclaim my of the city of Chicago you're not going to filibuster here when did you become
▶ 4:14:08mayor I was elected mayor of the city of in May and I'm sorry in April of 2023 and I was sworn in May 1523 on June 12th 2023 you received Hugo Boss cuff links and a personalized Mont Blan pin do you know who gave you those so I did not receive those personally the city of Chicago reive those on behalf right on behalf of the city of Chicago as difference in the history of
▶ 4:14:39Chicago who has provided to the city of Chicago do you know who gave those to the city of Chicago so again on behalf of the city of Chicago there are a yes or no question I do not accept those are not my personal gifts those are the gifts of the city of Chicago and that's why you are aware that they exist because they with time here sir on March 18th 2024 you received a Gucci tote bag do you know who gave you that gave the city of Chicago that again I was here and I was invited also respond
▶ 4:15:09question around welcoming City I'm happy to answer any of those bag a Kate Spade purse and kuchi shoes do you know who gave the city of Chicago those again I was brought I'll take that as a not I'm reclaiming my time I aming serious ethical concerns you're providing an enormous amount of Aid to illegal aliens aiding and abetting criminals who have come into our country illegally and you yourself are receiving an enormous amount of gifts and you
▶ 4:15:39won't even tell us who they're coming from that serious ethical concern minut rule gentlemen chairman I'd like to ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record the city of Chicago office of Inspector General advisory concerning gifts accepted on behalf of the city without objection so ordered thank you chair now recognizes Miss TB for five minutes thank you Mr chair um mayor Adams since we're on the uh this conversation
▶ 4:16:10around um oversight and some Mis claims here about corruption I mean do do you agree Mr Mayor Adams yes I I hear you I hear you com oh okay you weren't looking at me that's why it's okay I'll speak louder if you want do you agree to uh to a quidd pro Crow deal to enforce the Trump administration's cruel immigration policy in exchange for protection from the federal corruption charges against you and you are under oath just as a reminder uh congresswoman there was no agreement there was no quit
▶ 4:16:40Procol and I've done nothing nothing wrong get help me out here though so the Trump official Tom homman we all know who he is uh he said quote I'm quoting him if he doesn't come through I'll be in his office up his butt sorry chairman uh saying where the hell is the agreement we came to end of quote you're accusing the Trump Administration for lying did they lie what agreement did they're lying then U Mr Homeland and I
▶ 4:17:10both agree we would fight dangerous criminals and we've never had any conversation about my uh case Okay so mayor um Johnson and jonis Johnson and who I'm sorry I can't get the that you can just call it Chicago and Denver there you go this is really important you know as a child of immigrants and many I think many of my colleagues on that side of the owl have beautiful diverse communities as well and one of the things that I know happens when we try to have local law enforcement and local uh City officials
▶ 4:17:41I mean they even want treasury to folks that work for a city treasury uh asking people for immigration status that's what they would prefer you know is that racal profiling to I mean what do you do like you wait for somebody to come they have an accent maybe they wear hijab maybe they look a certain way that's what they want you to do that's what they're asking you to do by the way they want you all to basically do the job of what the federal government should be
▶ 4:18:11doing in regards to passing really comprehensive immigration reform so families are not separated because right now they're just all they want to do is continue talk about enforcement guess what the last 20 years it didn't work did it it isn't working so one by one if you can talk about that because I know my mother who's been here for over 50 years is carrying her passport her US passport for the first time in her life and she ain't traveling nowhere out of the country but she's carrying it because she knows her beautiful accent it's beautiful
▶ 4:18:42I love uh and and just just so fearful of being stopped and being asked her immigration status she knows she'll be racially profiled and she already feels unsafe in a community she lived in for over 50 years thank you Congress I would just agree we don't think it's relevant to know someone's status when they come into a public library to check out a book or if they uh come to the hospital for service or if they come to register their child uh for school the Constitution says you're entitled to an education our job is to provide it so
▶ 4:19:12we we think that's unnecessary and it just scares people away yeah mayor yeah allowing local law enforcement in the city of Chicago to focus on City priorities as well as making sure that there's trust between our immigrant Community communities and all of our communities I've worked on domestic violence case as a former regression attorney abut I'm telling you this is deadly for women being abused deadly it certainly engenders trust and that's how we have driven crime down in the city of Chicago because of that trust May thank you congresswoman Boston is proud to be the safest major city in the country and we do not ask
▶ 4:19:42about immigration status when providing city services we also are clear to all our residents that we do not care about immigration status when we hold people accountable for doing harm in the community as well yeah because when I hear Sanctuary City I hear anti-age racial profiling I really do I hear like okay we're not here in the business of trying to enforce broken immigration uh laws that are inhumane completely immoral right now that's what I hear and I as a former immigration attorney when I hear the story in in Denver and trust me ice is there waiting to pick them up
▶ 4:20:12they s six of them and they couldn't handle six of them couldn't take this guy that they're supposed to pick up I don't doesn't make any sense to me because they're there they're pretending they don't know that as a fact but one of the things that bothers me about all of this is the executive order of resending the sensitive locations why this is important they basically want to do immigration enforcement and racial profiling and immigration enforcement that's race-based because look at I'm at the Canadian border in Detroit do you know the majority of people come coming down
▶ 4:20:43undocumented is Canadian but guess what it's still the brown folks that are uh overwhelming ACLU did a study is overwhelming the ones being targeted detained and deported and so for me the sensitive location this is hospitals schools you know this is like uh funerals this was all a policy in place to protect us from having our communities over police and militarize can you talk about the impact of that and I have 22 more seconds because he went over he went over 22 more over him
▶ 4:21:13no he didn't no I didn't chairman I never went so spoke over him no not you the mayor spoke over Brandon oh well I didn't he I want it doesn't matter I keep went over 22 seconds go go ahead ask I want to answer the question about the sensitive locations because this is something we all should be scared of because pastors are calling me because they're talking about churches being possibly having ice agents show up at churches I can just say congresswoman our fastest growing Church in Denver went from 700 folks in the parish uh to after that announcement
▶ 4:21:44all right very good thank you thank you yep chair recognizing Mr Fallon from Texas all right 43 seconds that's a deal all right Mr chairman thank you uh coming into this very important hearing I suspected that Democrats would claim illegal immigrants pose no danger and would frame them as a sympathetic victim class completely and completely glaze over the tremendous financial burden that mass migration places on the should ERS of the American taxpayers
▶ 4:22:14and furthermore they would completely ignore the grave dangers that violent criminal illegals pose to all Americans it would be Democrats would use Spin and deflection and woke wonderment and delusion and some would even blatantly lie and as they so often do the left did not disappoint the first claim that we heard was they were ice agents ripping adorable children off adorable school buses there was a meth it never happened and what was the source of
▶ 4:22:44this Democratic claim one letter written by one superintendent in a country of 13,000 school districts and that letter said that this may happen well I may start a business with flying monkeys deliver new fruit salads I may but it never happened in the case in point it was Alice ISD and Mr chairman there was another letter that Alice ISD sent and I'm GNA quote it it said we have not had any customs in Border Patrol enter
▶ 4:23:14or board buses nor do we have any knowledge of it happening here or in any other school district it was a spin it was deflection and it was a lie now the most important thing that any elected official should focus on is to keep our citizens safe there's no great calling major uh Mayor Johnson is Chicago a safe City we are a safer City since I've been in office crime is down okay sir crime is down you're not going to over Mr chairman I reclaim my time you're
▶ 4:23:44not going to over talk me Brandon's uh he was very nice and he's a freshman not going to do that in 2022 I find it interesting that you say Chicago's safe you have a higher murder rate than Haiti and the Biden Administration put up a travel advisory saying to Americans don't go to Haiti I hope that the Trump Administration puts up uh a travel advisory saying don't go to Chicago in fact the the Haiti has a murder rate of 18.02% Chicago has a murder rate 18.26% I
▶ 4:24:15can see why sir you have a 14% approval writing mayor Woo you're a Democrat yes yes okay uh you supported the Biden Harris Administration politically I did yeah okay uh do you think that they took border security seriously I think Washington failed on immigration and continues to do so let me ask that again did you think the Biden Administration took border security seriously I think Washington fails yes or no it's not a trick question mayor I think there's responsibility across this entire come on we can e it out of you yes or
▶ 4:24:45no did did Biden administr did did Biden Harris do a good job you were supporting Kamal Harris so apparently you must thought she was okay on it Washington okay so you're not going to answer well here's the thing we can deal with the delusion no mayor I'm going to reclaim my time we can deal with delusion or we can deal with data so let's talk about some data under the TW I find this interesting under the 12 years that Barack Obama and Donald Trump were president there were 460,000 illegal encounters annually on average under Joe Biden it was 2,641
▶ 4:25:15th000 it was 600% worse mayor woo you would agree with me I hope on this B Vladimir Putin's a bad ombre and he rules over an authoritarian regime yeah yes bipartisan agreement wonderful there were uh in under President Trump's first Administration 98 Russian Nationals that were a yourh handed on the southern border entering the country illegally under Joe Biden it was 127,500 worse terror terror wash list went from 11 under President Trump
▶ 4:25:46to 382 that might be one of them calling right now February of 2024 190,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended this past month was only 8,000 96% reduction now the common theme that we heard from a lot of oversight Democrats is a bullace lie that illegal immigrants or I should say im immigrants are less likely to commit crimes what they're doing is are infusing legal immigrants with illegal when you bade
▶ 4:26:16when you separate them yes legal immigrants are less likely to commit crimes but illegal immigrants are more likely to non US citizens account for 7% of the US population yet account for 15% of the federal arrest and prosecutions according to the justice department the Federation for American Immigration Reform found that if you were an illegal immigrant you were two times more likely to be incarcerated in California in New York and five times more likely in Arizona and in June of in my home state in June of 2011 to June of 2024
▶ 4:26:47or January 2024 Mr chairman there were 428,000 criminal aliens booked in Texas jails 299,000 of them were illegal immigrants charged with murder rape sexual assault kidnapping assault at L 187,000 convictions so it is an outrageous claim to say that when we secure I no 42 seconds left no you don't no I got 20 yes I do cuz she went over 42 seconds spare me Mr chairman I got 20 seconds left and I'll wrap he's wrapping his question up
▶ 4:27:17but he's doing it's an outrageous claim to say that securing the border and enforcing our immigration laws does not make Americans safer because it does and if you don't agree with that I would encourage you to talk to Lake and Riley's family or Josel and nerra family Mr chairman I yield back gentlemen thank you chair recognizes uh Miss stanbury from New Mexico all right well thank you Mr chairman I always think that we should Sage this room after these hearings because we hear a lot of crazy stuff in here but let me start out by saying Mayors Welcome to our
▶ 4:27:47committee thank you for serving your cities and your people I have to say as a also an elected official you have the hardest job in America there is no job harder than being a mayor of a major city so thank you for serving your constituents and I want to take this opportunity to especially acknowledge mayor woo because not only are you the first woman to ever serve the city city of Boston if you all haven't been watching she is also the mother of a newborn
▶ 4:28:18who is here with her she has a seven week year old baby and she showed up to testify and be yelled at by our colleagues for 4 hours so I say to you mayor woo may your daughter grow up to be a fierce leader like you thank you now I want to reject the fundamental premise of this hearing because what this entire effort is about is intimidating state and local officials
▶ 4:28:48attacking law abiding immigrant families and spending millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars both in the administration and in Congress to make ads that are complete smoke in be mirrors trying to say that Donald Trump has somehow secured America's safe uh safety what they are doing is not making America safer in fact it's a total and complete lie because Donald Trump has failed to
▶ 4:29:19actually even secure the Border he's failed to stop illicit drugs like fentanyl from crossing the border he's failed to secure sufficient Staffing and Technology to stop human trafficking and illicit drugs from crossing the border he's failed to support local law enforcement and behavioral health programs to address the issues that are affecting our communities and he's failed to even execute on the most basic thing that he said he would do which was to pass immigration reform when he got into office
▶ 4:29:49here we are Donald Trump where's your immigration Bill oh wait you don't have one that's right because none of none of this is actually about making America safer in fact all of this is making America weaker he's dismantling our federal law enforcements that would actually go after cartels and Drug traffickers over the last last six weeks Donald Trump has taken out the most senior FBI officials and the officials in our us
▶ 4:30:19attorney's offices that were actually process Prosecuting the cases against the drug cartels Donald Trump took out the law enforcement that were Prosecuting those cases so let's be real about that he froze federal law enforcement funds all across the country I have tribes in my district that still haven't had their doj grants reinstated let's be real about what's going on here he's Frozen funds to Refugee resettlement
▶ 4:30:49and other immigrants groups permanently who have outstanding receipts there are refugees and Ayes that had waited decades to get to this country from war torn parts of the world and they literally had their flights canel the last two weeks while Donald Trump is sitting in the Oval Office and offering millionaire ol ARS a free ride into America with his gold program is this really about making America
▶ 4:31:19safe again is that really what he's about is that really what my colleagues across the aisle are about because what I can tell you as a representative from a great city the city of Albuquerque a border state is that we know what makes our community safer it means we stop drugs from coming into our country and our communities it means that we support and we fund our law enforcement it means that we fund our Behavioral Health System it means that we support our Mayors our tribal leaders and our state
▶ 4:31:50officials it means that we invest in them it does not mean that we drag them in front of Congress for 4 hours we yell at them we tell them we're going to give them criminal referrals the doj is in intimidating our Mayors and my colleagues across the aisle are producing tv ads to try to pretend that they're making this country safe again it's total absolute they are not making America safer again and what
▶ 4:32:20they are doing is terrorizing immigrant families that is what they are doing parents who are afraid to send their kids to school parents who are afraid that they won't come home again kids who are afraid to leave their houses refugees who have waited for years to come into this country and our Mayors are sitting here enduring this ridiculous hearing as they've been threatened in front of the American people and so I will say in the words of my sister
▶ 4:32:50in the front row who brought forward the words of one of our faith leaders just a few days ago on the house floor I hope that my colleagues across the aisle who I can tell most of whom come from immigrant stock will have the Mercy that our ancestors had shown to them by this country so that you could sit here and be a Congress person m g lady times expired we as un unanimous consent c
▶ 4:33:20m Miss Crockett um from The Economist how Boston became the safest big city in America murder is declining across the country but Boston has led the way and then I have one more UC request it is from insight.org gang violence and Haiti continued to Surge in 2024 following a trend that began after the assassination of president um in 2021 the country reported a record number of homicides in 2024 with over 7,000 murders for a rate of 62% up from
▶ 4:33:5140.9% in 2023 without objection to order at the request of the witnesses we're we're going to do one more question it'll be Mr sessions from Texas then uh the committee will take a uh 15minute break last questioner before the break at the request of the witnesses will be Mr sessions Texas Mr chman thank you very much to the panelists thank you for taking time to be here I uh hasten to say that I'm
▶ 4:34:21probably not going to yell at you uh I will not live I will not live up to the things that uh we've been accused of today but I will say that I want to defend uh some actions that are being taken uh I remember a few years ago when Boston had two legal aliens who were they were known as uh uh criminal aliens but they were known as on the watch list
▶ 4:34:51they uh created a bomb that went off at the uh at the uh Boston Marathon only killed a couple people but caused huge disruption and it brought to light that the administration at the time and prior administration had allowed people who were on watch lists that we understood terrorism criminal uh and we were allow them in the country we
▶ 4:35:21watched forward as we moved uh about the rule of law being ignored United States of America allows one million people to go through our process the largest amount of anywhere in the world one million people and they go through a process and I spoke at one of these uh ceremonies natural naturalization ceremonies last May and I spoke to the people that were there and they all
▶ 4:35:52unequivocally stated thank you to the United States of America but they learned what they were entering what they were expected to do that their Customs from where they came from some could be kept but the things which did not correspond to American law now needed to be followed that they were going to become American citizens not where they came from but they wanted to be Americans and they had to follow those rules and regulations
▶ 4:36:22or laws that we were very open to them being here and that they could Le legally perform the duties that they wanted what has caused this mismatch is more than just the Boston Bomber or people being killed but rather the public interest s in looking at what the charade that it caused all across this country in particular in larger cities Chicago yes
▶ 4:36:53New York City yes other cities around the United States where people felt not only threatened but it was activity that was seen as Unbecoming to people who should be where they were and giving respect and thanks to a group of people who were allowing them to be here I.E a city that was not going to arrest them but you see what we really understood is if
▶ 4:37:23you were illegally they weren't going to arrest you even for a crime they might have arrested someone who was a citizen and put them behind bars but unless they really created a heinous circumstance they were not going to be arrested and so this created an aura around the United States that the American people understood and that is one of the reasons why you saw
▶ 4:37:53the American people not only vote with their hands but vote with their emotions about the need to bring back not just Law and Order not just rule of law but the ability that we had as an American people to rethink the entire issue and I do understand you think that this is all broken in Washington DC because you disagree with it
▶ 4:38:24but what we've been allowing is the next president whether it be Barack Obama whether it be George W bush whether it be Donald Trump whether it be bar Joe Biden to insist upon their own way instead of the law the laws have been misguided Ed they've been misused and they are taken advantage of I think what we're trying to do today is to hear from you not as we're accused but rather thoughtful people
▶ 4:38:54to hear you talk about your cities the things which you encounter and the things which you think are right and by and large and I've been in and out of this committee today I but we by and large heard it's it's it it's more safe it's not less safe it's more safe because of what we do and yet it comes at a cost and a price
▶ 4:39:24and it creates circumstances so I want to thank you for being here I want you to remember that not everybody yelled and screamed at you some people actually showed up to listen and that is what I did today I want to thank each of you because your modeling that you have been doing is something that we do need to pay attention to Mr chairman I yield back my very good the committee will take a 20 minute break pursu it to the previous order the chair declares the committee
▶ 4:39:55in recess for 20
▶ 4:59:39e for
▶ 5:00:22are you ready I'm ready I think the mayor's out here okay the committee will come back to order chair recognizes Miss Crockett from Texas thank you so much Mr chair and and um thank you so
▶ 5:00:53much to our mayors that are here and I I really quickly want to touch on something because I know that many of you prepared for today's hearing by making sure that you got a little bit of information about um immigrants and crime in your cities let me ask each of of the Mayors just yes or no um have any of you been made aware of any immigrant that has had 34 felony conviction felon uh felony convictions that has still been able to roam around in your cities any
▶ 5:01:23anyone no ma'am 34 felony convictions no Cong from the immigrants anybody I'm I'm not aware oh okay okay I'm just curious because we are so concerned about crime and I know that my Republican colleagues would never want anybody with 34 felony conviction roaming around because that could be a danger to the community but I will move on the Republicans put more effort into producing their little propaganda trailer for this hearing than they have into reforming America's immigration system
▶ 5:01:54and that's why we're here today in fact Republicans are beating up on the vast majority of you about what you're doing for your citizens but the last time I checked you're actually showing up um you may or may not be aware but the nrcc just instructed Republican to stop their Town Hall meetings because their constituents were showing up and telling them to do your jobs if I had to sum up some of what you have said thus far today I would sum it up as you have been trying to tell
▶ 5:02:24them as politely as you can to do their jobs okay in fact we know that they have not done their jobs and so they're trying to force you to do it for them by turning your local Law Enforcement Officers into ice agents they have this fake outrage about how immigrants are stealing resources and jobs from Americans when residents of Boston Chicago New York City and Denver are subsidizing public services in their districts and their
▶ 5:02:54states because the Republicans refuse to ensure that their constituents earn a livable wage look they don't have a plan to fix immigration in America because they don't want to mass deportation isn't a plan arresting kids in schools or worshippers in Church isn't a plan but there are important points to discuss as it relates to immigration in America so Mr Beer in January you testified before the Judiciary subcommittee on immigration Integrity security and enforcement during that hearing
▶ 5:03:25we played a little game called rhetoric or reality do you remember that I remember yeah okay well let's go ahead for round two why don't we rhetoric or reality immigrants are a burden to the American taxpayers because they deplete our federal resources that would be rhetoric correct in fact the Congressional budget office estimates that immigrants will lower us deficits by accumulative $1 trillion and increase the US economy size by nearly $9 trillion over 10 years is that correct
▶ 5:03:55that is correct in 2023 47 million immigrants paid nearly $652 billion in taxes 58.1 billion in taxes alone in Texas rhetoric or reality during his first Administration Trump improved enforcement of US immigration laws he did not in fact president Trump closed almost all immigration Courts for removal proceedings cut prosecutions for unauthorized entry by 87% cut ice removals
▶ 5:04:26to the lowest level in the history of the agency and released 9,000 people with violent crime convictions back into our communities is that correct that's right yes so rhetoric or reality president Trump's immigration policies make americ Community safer no they don't make communities safer in fact nearly a 100,000 unauthorized immigrants have obtained legal status through their cooperation with law enforcement and local law enforcement agencies have more than 300,000
▶ 5:04:56pending requests for immigrants seeking legal status based upon their cooperation with law enforcement according to the Department of Homeland Security is that correct that's right immigrants work with law enforcement to stop and solve crimes thank you that was one of my rhetoric or reality questions sorry the the question was immigrants without legal status can help stop crime that's correct yes that's correct and Mr Beer isn't it true that Republicans are threatening to illegally strip cities of law enforcement grants intended for local policing
▶ 5:05:27and Public Safety if they don't go along with Trump's immigration agenda that's right they want to redistribute the fiscal uh burden uh uh onto the Democratic cities and away from the Republic on which brings me to my next Point mayor Adams do you believe that President Trump is weaponizing the Department of Justice against local governments like New York City as I stated
▶ 5:06:00public uh uh thank you for the question uh congresswoman and as I indicated uh previously uh this case is in front of and I'm going to allow the judicial process to go forward well let me ask it a different way there was a quote from Mr well he had to get advice so can I just get a he he was getting advice so can I get a little bit of time I didn't interrupt why he was getting advice because they were go ahead okay this is the last one um
▶ 5:06:31there was a quote from Mr homman I believe where he said he will be in your office and up your butt uh if this if if there was a problem with whatever agreement we don't know what it was my question to you I know you've been asked about it a couple of times today is was he lying when he said that you made an agreement that would cause him to beat up your butt if you failed to uphold your end of it and G ladies times expired but if the mayor wants to answer that he can uh congresswoman
▶ 5:07:01uh I answered that question and it appears as though we're asking the same questions over and over and over again my CH my my comments are not going to change no quit protol no agreement I did nothing wrong chair recognizes Mr Langworthy from New York thank you very much Mr chairman thank you Mayors for being here you all represent cities that should be beacons of opportunities for young professionals entrepreneurs and hardworking Americans that want to make it in this world uh not the Laughing stocks that they
▶ 5:07:31become in many ways New York was once hailed as the capital of the world Boston was admired for its founding role in America Chicago was the Gateway to the West and the icon of the Great Lakes and Denver was admired for its natural beauty now all these cities are seen as a place where illegal immigrants violent criminals and gang members Thrive breaking our laws and spreading fear throughout our communities let's be clear Sanctuary policies have not just failed they've made our cities less safe and less welcoming to those who truly want to contribute to our communities
▶ 5:08:02here's a perfect example lak and Riley's murderer was arrested in New York City on charges of detaining a minor he was released due to New York State's Sanctuary status he was then allowed to go on to Georgia where he murdered Laken In Cold Blood last night in my district 400 miles from New York City two members of trendor ragua gang were arrested for an ATM jackpotting scheme that stole more than $100,000 the suspects were also wanted for similar crimes uh throughout the state
▶ 5:08:32of New York and in your State's Mayor Johnson and mayor woo for hundreds of thousands of dollars now God only knows what else these dangerous gang members are responsible for Buffalo ice recently arrested an illegal from Peru who had murdered 23 people and had the victim's faces tattooed on his body he was allowed to evade law enforcement for a long time due to New York State green light law that protected him and shielded DMV data uh from federal law enforcement
▶ 5:09:02officials there is no such thing as a victimless crime every crime has a victim and these victims they don't have a sanction U they have to live with the pain and the trauma of something being taken from them their safety their security their property and to add insult to injury the witnesses before us have protected the perpetrators mayor woo the other day you stunningly expressed Sympathy for the man responsible for the knife attack not the brave officer who stopped him where is the sympathy for the men and women
▶ 5:09:32in law enforcement trying to keep us safe Congressman facts it's my time check your facts watch the video it's my did not express sympathy for that syp and any individual lost is a it'sing to me that we even have to ask for sympathy for victims instead of violent criminals but here we are and to all the Mayors before us hindsight being 2020 uh is a blessing and a curse you can't go back in time but it should you give you Clarity for the future
▶ 5:10:03laken's murderer josea Bara had demonstrated he was a danger to society he should have been detained by Ice I want to ask each of you yes or no do you agree that someone who demonstrates a willingness to harm Society should be detained by immigration officials mayor Adams uh yes or no I within the confining restrictions of the law yes I do okay Mayor John someone that's committed a crime yes sorry someone that's committed a crime yes should be detained and we would help
▶ 5:10:33them every violent criminal should be should be held accountable and that's why crime is down in the city of Chicago because we're doing just that mayor will if you commit crimes against the people of Boston you'll be prosecuted uh another yes or no question has anything that's happened in this country in the last three years given you uh reason to consider removing Sanctuary City status from your communities mayor Adams I I I'm clear that what we do is prevent some of these crimes from taking place Mayor Johnson
▶ 5:11:03we think the system that we have works and we will keep it violing crime is down in Chicago because of welcoming city ordinance have you considered removing Sanctuary City status well violent crime is down in the city of Chicago under my leadership we going to continue to do what we have to do to make sure that they continues mayor woo we are the safest major city in the country in part because people trust that they can call 911 and help police solve crimes have have you considered removing Sanctuary City status we are going to continue to keep our policies in place that have been working for the people of Boston
▶ 5:11:33I think you've answered the question the American people are fed up with the policies to protect criminals waste taxpayer dollars in prioritize illegal immigrants over the safety and well-being of hardworking citizens your city's once shining beacons of opportunity have now become a symbol of failure in leadership the time for excuses is over and the American people demand that you take responsibility abandon these Reckless policies and start putting the safety of your constituents first and with that I yield back Mr chairman gentleman yields back CH Mr chair I have a unanimous consent who said
▶ 5:12:04that from usafacts.org which states rely the the most on federal aid the number three highest proportion of federal funding that a state relies upon is the state of Kentucky your state Mr chair without objection so order chair recognizes Miss Simon from California thank you Mr chairman and thank you ranking member Mayors it's uh really a pleasure to hear from you today and uh Miss I was able to meet your sleeping daughter outside
▶ 5:12:35and as a mother myself um I know the care that you are taking not only for your own family but for our communities but to all of you thank you for being here today for so many hours just quickly um you know when I came to Congress I was under the impression that both members of Congress and folks who are in the federal government take heed to the history of this country I would love for members of Congress and on this committee to contact the Congressional research service and look at the ordinances and the authors who created ordinances of Sundown
▶ 5:13:05towns that animus is almost mirrored with the conversations today about our immigrant communities so when you get in your Uber and when you talk to your nurse and when you go home I want you to look in the face of the folks that you are disrespecting today the real crisis is a crisis to me and many who study this issue for a career it's a broken Asylum system right now 3.7 million folks are in this country waiting and they have waited years
▶ 5:13:36meeting these folks fleeing violence for years are waiting for an immigration system that works that is not on the duty of these Mayors it is our job it's the federal government's job create a Asylum system that honestly reports what we say on the base of the Statue of Liberty and let's get that work done don't blame our Mayors who are supporting young people and elders and bringing in federal dollars for health care I want to yield my time to the gentle lady uh from New York
▶ 5:14:06uh Miss uh I um I thank the congresswoman I'd like to start with some questions prior to uh my recognized questions mayor Adams on January 31st of 2025 your attorneys met with Federal prosecutors regarding the charges of bribery campaign Finance fraud and conspiracy uh against you were you aware of this meeting prior to its occurrence congresswoman
▶ 5:14:37as I microphone I'm sorry as I stated uh to your colleagues and I'm going to continue to State because we're asking the same question over and over again this is a question this this case is in front of Judge ho and at a deference to Justice May process I'm going to Mayor Adams as your Council I'm sure will uh will inform you the only permissible way to refuse to answer a question during a congressional proceeding such as this is uh
▶ 5:15:07is by pleading the fifth amend Amendment uh deference to the judge is not a permissible uh excuse for not answering questions during a congressional hearing are is it your intention to plead the fifth today uh uh councilwoman U you said the only way you can't answer a question is to plead the fifth I am answering your question I'm answering your question directly that you are not mayor Adams okay I believe I am I will ask it again were you
▶ 5:15:37aware of the meeting of you between your attorneys and federal prosecutors on January 31st answering this question is a yes or no and I'm going to answer it again at a deference to uh judge H with this case that is not an answer mayor Adam he is going to uh deal with the outcome of the case mayor Adams is it your intention to not comply with this with this uh with questions uh as as I stated
▶ 5:16:08I'm as I'm answering your questions and what you're doing U let's be clear on you're asking me about Communications between my attorney and I and I don't think that is appropri to be asking a question between me our attorney and I because we are in a country of Law and Order your relationship communication with your attorney should be respected who is your attorney Alex Spyro Alex Spyro thank you um
▶ 5:16:38now mayor Adams have your attorneys ever met with City officials that is not covered you know I'm not asking about your conversations with your attorneys have your attorneys met with City officials New York City officials any communication or activity between my attorney yes or no have your have your personal New York City official Alex Spyro my attorney to deal with those Communications uh mayor Adams uh in this meeting did anyone representing you including perhaps Mr Spyro agree
▶ 5:17:09or allude to any arrangement with the Trump Administration that would involve changing City policies in exchange to reconsideration of the charges brought against you uh you say in this meeting can you be clear in the January 31st meeting uh again there was never any agreement never any quit proall and nothing wrong never any agreement never any quit proc call was there an illusion to shift YK
▶ 5:17:39times expired and and I just want to remind everyone mayor Adams is here voluntarily and we appreciate that that topic of the hearing is uh about illegal alien problem and the the drain on the cities and the what what the solution is so chair now recognize Mr McGuire from Virginia thank you Mr chairman for uh convening this important hearing the American people deserve answers on the disastrous Poli policies
▶ 5:18:09of sanctuary cities as a veteran as a Navy SEAL I hope what I'm about to say is common sense if somebody saved your life on the battlefield you wouldn't care if they were pink or blue or male or female or democrat Republican or independent we're all people this is not a race religion or Creed thing this is an American our American people we the people are being robbed raped and killed by these criminals that are coming across our border my first question is just a yes or no
▶ 5:18:39do you believe someone who breaks the law is a criminal mayor Adams yes I do next if you've broken criminal law simple yes or no did you answer yes sir okay could you repeat your question again if you commit a crime are you a criminal yes or no if you commit a crime you should be held absolutely I don't use that label depending on what it is like a speeding ticket for example next well I got to tell you guys thank God we have President
▶ 5:19:10Trump in the white house thanks thank God we have the bordar um Tom hman thanks thank God we have Mike Johnson as a speaker thanks God we have leader Thun in the Senate and uh thank God we have hex Seth Rubio and everyone else over the last four years the American people have been robbed raped and killed and the left doesn't talk about that they want to say that people might be scared in their homes well what about the families whose members have been killed and persecuted the uh border has been cleaned up in just a matter of of weeks border
▶ 5:19:40crossings are down 97% in just a matter of weeks and over the last four years we've been getting lip service like we want to secure the Border 80% of Americans believe we should secure the border we are all elected leaders and I assume you all sought these positions to help your citizens improve the quality of life in your your city it appears to me that left-wing uh activists want to create wedges in our society and cause the mayors of our great cities to ignore the oath of office and to support rule of law
▶ 5:20:10each of you took an oath that included oath to support the Constitution of United States correct yes yes yes are you aware that article 6 section two makes laws of the United States Supreme known as the supremacy clause is everybody aware of this yes I'm shocked that you all as elected leaders flaunt violating federal laws as if you are running a political campaign we are a nation of laws we lose credibility as a nation when we disregard or ignore uh the law
▶ 5:20:40and the people die as of July 24th there are more than 660,000 illegal aliens from criminal backgrounds roam in the United States it is estimated that a total added cost of illegal aliens Nationwide is $150 billion per year since the start of 2023 the federal government has spent more than $ 1.45 billion dollar reimbursing local jurisdictions and non governmental organizations that provide travel shelter and other service to illegal aliens what about homeless veterans that are living on the street what
▶ 5:21:10about hurricane Helen victims that are still suffering in North Carolina what about those folks that are suffering from the forest fires in Los Angeles Chicago has spent over $639 million Denver spent over $365 million Boston is spending potentially well about1 billion dollar annually and New York City estimates estimates it could potentially spend 122 billion on illegal aliens from 2022 through fiscal year if you were the president and you found that your
▶ 5:21:40cities were spending billions of dollars against the interest of your citizens in violation of supremacy clause don't you think you would have caus to consider withholding Federal funding yes or no no answer uh no because we've not violated any federal law yes you uh you are making the taxpayers of this nation foot your bill for your potential whims that you don't agree with is wrong and that is getting people
▶ 5:22:10killed Mayor woo in the Boston area alone Tom homman said there are at least nine accused child rapist that is inac that is false put him under oath and ask the question here how could you do that to your citizens it sounds like you care more about your politics and the safety of your citizens imagine the parents of those children abused by someone you all released into society Congressman our SA are the lowest in the country than your
▶ 5:22:41District a little girl was age 14 was raped by an illegal alien he was released from jail four times because it seems in your line you guys on the left you believe that criminals are good police are bad and no one cares about the victims this hor horrific crime was avoidable but it was Sanctuary policies like yours that allow the offender to travel to the US and end up in my district and with that I yield gentleman uh yield
▶ 5:23:11chair recognize Mr Min from California uh thank you Mr chair I want to take a moment just to note that once again this committee is failing to do its job and actually exercise oversight in the way it should my phones are ringing off the hook with people who are angry as hell about what they see as the rampant Corruption of this Administration the illegal activities of Elon Musk and do Doge and the massive cuts to Medicaid that Republicans voted for last week literally not one person has called to ask about the immigration enforc ment priorities of the Cities I represent let alone Boston
▶ 5:23:41or Chicago this hearing is an attempt to distract from the actual waste fraud corruption and abuse that is happening at unprecedented levels in this country right now so thank you to the witnesses I want to start off with a few simple yes no questions for you all uh first please raise your hand for the Mayors if you are aware of any laws or policies that prevent Federal authorities from enforcing immigration in your city okay no hands are raised uh please raise your hand if you're aware of any City ities or states in America that have laws or policies that prevent
▶ 5:24:11Federal authorities from enforcing immigration law any cities or states okay I just want to know for the record again there are no hands up and as your answers make clear this whole Sanctuary City quote unquote debate is a sham there's no place in America not one that actually provides Sanctuary from federal law period the real issue here is whether state and local government should spend scarce taxpayer dollars to help the federal government enforce its immigration priorities whether local police should spend their time focused on their actual jobs
▶ 5:24:41keeping our streets safe uh apprehending violent criminals solving crimes or whether they should be deputized to help enforce Federal immigration laws and a lot of cities and states including my state of California have made the very reasonable decision to say hey we want our teachers nurses doctors cops firefighters to focus on their actual jobs and not be dragged into this Republican war on immigrants and let's be clear the Republican immigration policy is being pushed forward right now are counterproductive and will make us far less safe something several
▶ 5:25:11of our Mayors pointed out in their testimony look I support a 100% ban on all illegal border crossings but the reality is we already have over 10 million people here in this country without proper immigration status many of whom have been here for decades and if you have ice agents patrolling our cour houses police stations and hospitals that means that those undocumented imants are not going to go anywhere but they are going to stop reporting crimes or seeking Medical Care and this makes us all less safe from the rapists and murderers out there now recently my Orange County Sheriff
▶ 5:25:42Don Barnes a staunch conservative issued a statement outlining his position on immigration enforcement and here's what he stated the Orange County Sheriff's Department does not enforce Federal immigration law it is not part of our primary Mission and we remain focused on violations of state and local laws the department will provide for your safety and respond to your calls for service regardless of your immigration status we do not and never will ask the immigration status of victims Witnesses sus ects or those who call to report crimes we enforce state and local laws
▶ 5:26:12equally without bias and without concern for your citizenship now I actually think this is a pretty good summary of what each of you are describing happens in your cities a situation where the federal government enforces immigration law while States and local authorities enforce state and local laws and it makes a lot of sense I don't know what my colleagues on the other side think but I don't want my police focused on uh immigration status and asking people about that I want them focused on preventing violent crimes but with that I want to shift years to address mayor Eric Adams uh mayor as has been well discussed in this committee
▶ 5:26:42you are the first sitting mayor in modern New York City history to be indicted while in office last year of course you were charged with numerous felony counts for soliciting and accepting bribes for nearly a decade from foreign Nationals businessmen and others including illegal campaign contributions and luxury travel on February 10th of this year the Trump justice department instructed Federal prosecutors to drop charges against you this decision caused seven Federal prosecutors incl cluding a trump appointee to resign because they belied this was such an enormous miscarriage
▶ 5:27:13of the rule of law and law enforcement now as some of my colleagues have pointed out this was widely reported as a quid pro quo uh I know you've denied that I know you're probably Limited in what you can say uh but a lot of people out there including a lot of people in New York City that I know uh believe that these charges were dropped in exchange for a quid pro quo for your agreement to help the Trump Administration enforce its immigration policies so my question for you mayor Adams is actually a very simp one uh it's clear that whatever your intentions whatever actions you take whether on immigration or anything
▶ 5:27:43else you do not enjoy the trust and confidence of the people of New York City so I my question is why haven't you not resigned yet and do you plan to resign today or anytime soon I'm really I'm really surprised after you laid out your strong belief in uh the country yes no question and what we stand for that resed take why have you not resigned yet the people to be mayed should not be a hypocrite and
▶ 5:28:13ask the people of the city power to be resar for them why have you not resigned eled by res anytime gentlemen time expired gentlemen's time expired chair recognize Mr Jack from Georgia Mr chairman thank you for convening this hearing and I'd like to begin uh by offering some thoughts about our colleague from Texas Congressman Sylvester Turner who sadly just passed away as some of you may know Congressman Turner was a former two-term mayor of Houston and as our witnesses can no doubt attest being the mayor of a big city is not easy Congressman
▶ 5:28:44Turner uh was a member of our freshman class and his office is right next to mine and the Longworth house office building and as such I had an opportunity to walk with him to and from votes found him to be an incredible gentleman with respect and courtesy uh my colleagues across the aisle particularly The Freshman knew Congressman Turner better than I so I certainly yield to them on uh on this topic but I wanted to at least mention my own thoughts for the record um now to the topic of today's hearing I prepared for today's hearing by chatting with some of the Mayors from my district from those who represent just a few hundred uh
▶ 5:29:14to those who represent a few thousand and I found a common theme of frustration they along with me and many other constituents I proudly represent in Georgia's third congressional district want to know why policies are in place that benefit citizens of other countries at the expense of citizens of our own country so if I could Mayor Johnson I'd like to start with you from Denver uh know chairman comr and his opening line of questioning discussed an ordinance passed by the Denver City Council in 2017 and I recognize you had just left the state senate by then uh but this ordinance prohibits
▶ 5:29:44City and County employees from assisting the enforcement of federal laws or inquiring about a person's immigration status so I just have to ask do you see a benefit in learning whether or not someone charged with the crime is a citizen of another country thank you Congressman I do just want to say uh mayor Turner hosted me in Houston when I first became mayor so that's a powerful statement for me thank you for acknowledging it um uh thank you sir uh we don't ask someone's status when we uh when we first contact them because it's not relevant to whatever charges we may be pursuing uh they may list
▶ 5:30:14their country of origin on a document that we uh ask for it does not indicate their immigration status they could have legal status but be from another country than Mayor Johnson of Chicago do you see a benefit in asking someone charged with a crime whether or not they are a citizen of our country the benefit of community safety is trust between local residents in law enforcement and that's that relationship is critical to driving violence down um under leadership violence has gone down in the city of Chicago and Mayor Johnson if I can ask have you ever disciplined fired or arrested Law Enforcement
▶ 5:30:45Officers or correction officers if they notified ice or other Federal immigration officers of an illegal Criminal Alien and lock up Rec courts and violation of your Sanctuary City policies have you ever disciplined fired or arrested a law enforcement officer that worked with ice uh that is not I don't believe that's under the jurisdiction of the mayor I don't arrest people or are there issued memos in which you direct uh Chicago officers from not assisting with enforcement immigration law or you know helping
▶ 5:31:15I identify folks who may not be here IL legally we do have documentation around making sure that the residents of the city of Chicago know their rights that's important because it builds trust between law enforcement um and Community by having that confidence and trust people are more likely to come forward to report violent crime regardless of their immigration status well I have uh to submit to the record uh Mr chairman an article from news Nation now January 21st 2025 in which it says Chicago Police reminded they cannot cooperate with deportations and
▶ 5:31:45if I may ask mayor are there any memos thank you are there any memos uh that uh direct Chicago Police to not cooperate with President Trump's deportation plans well there's so local law enforcement we're not federal agents so local law enforcement in the city of Chicago they do not dub as federal agents but that having been said from your mayoral office have you ever issued memos to the police department uh instructing them
▶ 5:32:16not to cooperate with President Trump we remind people of what the welcoming city ordinance entails would you submit to the committee uh any written documentation to the Chicago Police Department as it relates to this for the welcome in city ordinance we're happy to make sure that this body has that that ordinance and that policy has been around for 40 years thank you very much mayor woo uh back to my line of questioning with Mayor Johnson and John Sten uh do you believe um do you believe that if you um if you are asking uh someone
▶ 5:32:46who's been charged with a crime whether or not they're here in our country legally is that a proper and uh beneficial thing to do the laws of Massachusetts and the Boston trust Act help Boston police solve crimes we do not ask for immigration status because it allows for people to trust that when they call 911 when they have information that might help bring Justice to another family that they feel comfortable sharing that thank you and mayor Adams in closing obviously you know police very well do you see a benefit in asking folks who've been charged with a crime whether or not they're a legal
▶ 5:33:16citizen uh yes I do with that Mr chairman I yield back thank you gentleman yields back chair recognizes uh Miss Gillan thank you Mr chairman um I think one thing everybody seems to agree on here is that our immigration system is broken and desperately needs to be fixed and I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to work together with us to fix our broken immigration system to fix our broken Asylum
▶ 5:33:46system which isn't which isn't fixed by firing the top immigration judges um who can actually help us fix this problem but my focus here today is the effect on my constituents on Long Island um every day my constituents are dealing with the effects of the failure to secure our border and the influx of more than 670,000 migrants have who who have come into the state and New York City putting a strain on our schools on public safety and law enforcement and local governments mayor Adams your said your top
▶ 5:34:16priority is to keep New Yorkers safe but under your watch the exact opposite has happened instead of effectively governing our city your policies have compounded this crisis New York has housed migrants in the Rosevelt hotel for nearly two years not only giving them food and shelter but also debit cards in New York totally uh taxpayers have paid about as you acknowledge $7 billion to respond to this crisis that figure is outrageous
▶ 5:34:47and now instead of stopping the bleeding you're going back and asking the taxpayers of New York to spend another billion dollars on this crisis while you've focused on your own personal Pro problems crime has skyrocketed in New York increasing 20% since you took office in 2021 an AP poll has said that the majority of Americans agree that people who commit undocumented people who commit violent crimes should be deported
▶ 5:35:17including 79% of Democrats but what have you done I was astounded to hear that ice was prevented even if they knew there were gang members in the Rosevelt hotel from actually doing anything to get those gang members out of there mayor Adams what have you done and what is your answer to the taxpayers of New York for the money that has been spent on this crisis you you raised uh several things and there's a Lev level of
▶ 5:35:47inaccuracy in some of the stuff you rais uh you look at our crime numbers I'm not sure where you got those from but we could give you an accurate account of our crime numbers crime has continued to drop since I've been the mayor of the city we have removed 20,000 over 20,000 illegal guns off our street and although we had 230,000 migrants in assignment secret that's came to Outdoors 189,000 were able to go on the next step of their Journey we managed a crisis uh congress makes our immigration policies
▶ 5:36:18not Mayors I manag a crisis that was dropped at my my door and I continue to do that every day and I'm proud of what my team did coming out of covid and managing this crisis as well our city has more private sector jobs in the history of the city we have we received our bond rate and increase and stabilized our city is functioning and we're going to continue to do the job that I'm I was elected to do so spending 8 million is doing it is a billion dollars is a good job um
▶ 5:36:48mayor Adams what you said today has given me no confidence in your ability to continue to serve and Lead our city but you don't live in New York City you live on Long Island you don't vote for mayor and you should resign and I said that before you made your deal with Donald Trump thank God you don't live in New York City you live on Long Island people New York City consents who work in Manhattan who kids live in Manhattan who go to the doctor in Manhattan everything that happens in Manhattan
▶ 5:37:18affects my constituents mayor I yield back I would the gentle lady yield to me please I thank the gentle lady uh my question Mr Beer we've heard a lot about crime so the overwhelming majority of crime in the United States is committed by undocumented uh individuals uh whose immigration status is dubious is that correct no that's not correct at all the overwhelming
▶ 5:37:48majority of crime is committed by us-born Americans so if I wanted to demonize naturally born Americans I could cherry-pick crime rates from that population and and demonize them and dramatize that and use it to smear and entire subgroup in the population in this case the majority group is that correct oh absolutely you could you could look at people with driver's licenses and say man they're committing a lot of crime we should stop issuing driver's
▶ 5:38:19licenses to people I think that's really the Sham and the shame of what people are doing in terms of political exploitation of a population this country needs if we're going to grow and protect the social safety net uh for the future thank you chair recognize is Miss Green from Georgia Thank you Mr chairman thank you for coming before our committee today in the past four years our nation has been invaded by millions and millions
▶ 5:38:49of people who have crossed our border there's also millions of what's called known Goda ways these are people that our government has no idea where they came from who they are what they're going to do in our country and many of these known guideways could be criminals they could be part of the Narco cartels they could be terrorists um we don't know who they are and there's millions of them here
▶ 5:39:19this country has also been the victim of fenel this is a dangerous chemical that comes from China is made into press pills in Mexico and Canada and illegally distributed into our country by the cartel on average 200 to 300 Americans die every single day from fitel not die they're murdered they're murdered Americans have also been
▶ 5:39:50victims of all types of illegal alien crimes one family in particular lak and Riley's family I I know them personally and her death was absolutely horrific Jose abara entered the United States illegally on September 8th 2022 near El Paso Texas with his wife and son he was detained by the US border patrol but soon released due to overcrowding at
▶ 5:40:20detention facilities after his release he was transported to New York City arriving around September 15th 2022 the following summer he was arrested by New York police department and charged with acting in a manner to injure a child injure a child and and a driver's license violation before an immigration detainer could be issued NYPD released iara according to ice
▶ 5:40:51he later after this release moved to Athens Georgia where he was cited for a misdemeanor for shoplifting in 2023 this guy got arrested multiple times he was stopped at the border but he was continually released just a few few months later he brutally murdered Lake and Riley mayor Adams do you agree that Lake and Riley would still be alive today if New York Police Department hadn't released Jose abara after they arrested him
▶ 5:41:21despicable crime and as a former law enforcement officer I respond to these crimes as the mayor as well and I believe people like that should be held accountable and I've advocated to stop this revolving door criminal justice Justice systems like him to come out and hurt innocent people I wish we would have had the power to prevent that from happening mayor Adams will you Contin continue Sanctuary City policies in your city this
▶ 5:41:51that policy is by law I do not make the law I must operate within the confines of the Constitution and the law mayor Adams will you Advocate to get rid of sanctuary City policies in the city of New York I have made it clear on a portion of the sanctuary City policies that I believe we need to alter to prevent crimes like this from taking place federal law under 8 USC 1324 makes it a crime to knowingly Harbor and shield illegal aliens from
▶ 5:42:21detection but your cities refuse to work with ice detainers to help them find criminals I'll go one at a time mayor Adams will you work with ice in New York City yes or no ice is part of our criminal justice apparatus and I would work with my city state and federal agencies to keep our Cities Safe no matter who they are Mayor Johnson will you work with ice to protect your city we do work with ice right now congresswoman
▶ 5:42:52when they send us information about someone they would like access to we send them notice when and where we will release them and they can pick them up we've done that 1226 times we will keep doing it will you end Sanctuary City policies we think the policies that we have right now allow us to work with ice and to stop crime we'll keep doing that Mayor Johnson will you work with ice our local law enforcement Chicago Police Department we work with federal agents on a variety of issues drug trafficking sex trafficking getting guns off the street
▶ 5:43:22and um we will continue to work with Federal will you stop harboring illegal aliens will you end Sanctuary City policies so the city of Chicago we do not Harbor criminals we do not Harbor undocumented individuals we compl with all laws mayor woo will you work with ice to protect Americans legal Americans in your city and in sanctuary policies the Boston police work with ice and federal agencies every single day on criminal matters and hold people who are committing
▶ 5:43:52crimes accountable uh chairman if I may um I'd like to enterer the record uh according to the US Constitution giving Aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States is an act of treason and and those that violate that should be without objection so ordered thank you chale recognizes Mr Casio Cortez thank you chairman um now uh mayor Adams are you aware that the former acting us attorney Danielle casson
▶ 5:44:23was present at the January 31st meeting between your lawyers and federal prosecutors uh as I stated and you congresswoman you appear to want to ask the question over and over again and so I could only give appropriate question over and over again that uh this I understand you not answer this question because you believe you will inate resp to the movement of uh Mr chairman I would like to submit to the Congressional Record uh Danielle sassoon's resignation letter the from
▶ 5:44:53the US attorney without objection to order thank you so much in her letter uh the former US uh acting us attorney a registered Republican a former clerk for Antonin Scalia was appointed by President Trump to serve as acting us attorney uh was present at the January 31st meeting between mayor Adams attorneys and federal prosecutors after that meeting with attorneys the acting us attorney resigned uh rather
▶ 5:45:23than dismiss the charges against mayor Adams in her letter which I have just submitted to the Congressional Record Miss suon stated that during that January 31st meeting mayor Adams's attorney quote repeatedly urged what amounted to a quidd pro quot describing it as a quote improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal
▶ 5:45:53of his case end quote the acting us attorney has submitted a formal former acting us attorney has submitted a letter and uh mayor Adams do you know how many federal prosecutors total resigned rather than filed the motion to drop the charges it was reported that seven seven correct uh Mr chair I would like to submit another letter
▶ 5:46:23uh from Hagen Hagen scotten his resignation letter without objection to ordered Mr scotton was an assistant us attorney who also attended the January 31st meeting between your attorneys and federal prosecutors he also resigned rather than dropped the charges in his resignation letter he stated and I quote our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence
▶ 5:46:54other citizens much less elected officials seven Federal prosecutors the acting us attorney the assistant us attorney all gave up their entire careers Republicans included then drop these charges because of what they saw transpire in that January 31st meeting
▶ 5:47:25this is important not just for the City of New York but for the people of the United States of America because what is being alleged is genuinely not just about what may or may not have occurred from the mayor's office and with the mayor but what is happening at the Department of Justice and that's what I want everyone to understand these are not Democratic us attorneys these are Republican us attorneys that have trained under
▶ 5:47:55rep who Republican appointed Supreme Court Justices who have stated that there is a that and suggested as well that the prosecutor power at the Department of Justice may be influencing what is occurring and instead of carrying that out and carrying out the erosion at the Department of Justice they would have preferred to give up their entire career seven lifelong public servants involved
▶ 5:48:26in law enforcement mind you and to that when it comes to the fact that this mayor may not have anything to do with this hearing uh respectfully Mr chairman this is about specifically immigration enforcement in terms of that and uh this right here is the for alarm fire that everyone must be paying attention to because if it's not just in in the mayor's office of New York City what other City what
▶ 5:48:56other individual what what other municipality leader can be next for a party that talks about State's rights and Municipal rights we must defend yes the rule of law including in the Department of Justice and with that I yield back K lady yields back chair recognizes Mr Le Hood from Illinois uh thank you Mr chairman and I would uh thank you for allowing me to the opportunity to wave on to this important Committee hearing today I want to thank the witnesses I represent
▶ 5:49:26a district right outside of Chicago the excerpts of Chicago uh representing Rockford Bloomington normal Peoria um and I want to thank you Mr chairman for having this hearing it's past time that uh individuals like the Mayors we have before us come before us and explain to the American people why you continue to fail to enforce the laws of our country and allow ille illegal immigrants to to flood into our communities and it's clear to me that Sanctuary City policies have significantly harmed our once great cities which is
▶ 5:49:56very very unfortunate uh during my time as an elected official I have strongly condemn the policy around Sanctuary cities and the impact it's had on the state of Illinois and I believe every sensible resident in Illinois knows these policies uh have further harmed the economy in Illinois increased crime throughout our state and endangered hardworking law-abiding Illinois citizens I want to turn my attention uh to you mayor uh Brandon Johnson of Chicago as I've watched uh you over the last two years that you've been
▶ 5:50:26mayor I I've been amazed at how ton deaf you have been and how oblivious you've been to the decline of Chicago and I say that that looking objectively objectively at a number of things out of control crime in Chicago people scared throughout neighborhoods on the West Side South Side North Side morale has never been lower with law enforcement and CPD record number of police officers leaving the force we have been hemorrhaging
▶ 5:50:57people out of the city of Chicago to the suburbs and elsewhere where they feel safe record number of businesses fleeing the city of Chicago you couple that with record deficits $2 billion deficit uh2 billion deficit line of credit that you just had to take out this week but you've spent $300 million of taxpayer money on immigrants and when I think about all of those things and I look at the strategy you continue to take I mean
▶ 5:51:27you're putting the interest of illegal immigrants above the interest of taxpayers in Chicago but you continue to go down this path and for the life of me I can't understand it so mayor tell me why you continue to put the interest of illegal immigrants above taxpayers in Chicago thank you for your representation violent crime is down in Chicago well let me reclaim my time so I have a statistic here last year Chicago had 573 murders down
▶ 5:51:58okay but I want to compare that to the city of New York that is uh almost 2third the size of Chicago 337 murders so you had 573 murders MERS in in the in the city of Chicago and you're onethird the size that's the lowest amount in 5 years under my leadership okay and and I and you look at the level of violent criminals sexual uh offenses and drug dealers all violent crime is down in Chicago in fact just this year alone Congressman respectfully there's a 20% decrease in violent crime in the city
▶ 5:52:28of Chicago with your sta well it's not a matter whether or not you agree with itaim my time cuz I thought you might do this and when I hear your answer no one in this room should be surprised that your approval rating is 6.6% now that's not just me saying this Newsweek article the least popular politician in America is Brandon Johnson so recent poll M3 strategies conducted this February 20th to 21st showed that
▶ 5:52:58Mayor Johnson has a 6.6% approval rating the worst showing of any political figure in the country's history so I know you're talking about crime is down and things are great and you know the city's flush with money none of that is backed up by the people in the city of Chicago and so I'm wondering why you continue to go down this path of failed policies uh destruction to the city of Chicago people fleeing law enforcement at an all-time low
▶ 5:53:28and I'm wondering if you have any remorse for that here today and can tell us why you continue to double down on these failed policies we've invested $1.25 billion for housing and economic development particularly for black Chicago it's the largest investment in the history of Chicago 45% increase in youth employment particularly for black and brown children I will not apologize for my investments in the people of Chicago we have one of the most diverse economies the top universities as violence continues to go down and Investments
▶ 5:53:59continue to go up that is what's most important we've opened up three mental health clinics the first mayor since the first black mayor in the history of Chicago invest in um Mr Mayor I'm gon to reclaim my time in public health and I will continue to make those approval rating speaks volume well the people approve of my investments and I will continue to make those Investments you're going the wrong direction you need to reverse your policies on Sanctuary cities that's what the election results were last year crime and immigration were the number one issue
▶ 5:54:29in the election from Republicans Democrat gentle we could use your help to actually help us continue to invest in these uh programs that continue to drive violence down in the city of Chicago and I'm willing to work with you and I'm glad I had a chance to finally meet you for the first time gentleman's time expired uh chair recognize Mr Davis Illinois well thank you very much Mr chairman and I also want to thank you and ranking member Cony if the gentleman could speak into the microphone so we can hear thank you very much Mr chairman
▶ 5:55:00I also want to thank you and ranking member Conley for letting me participate in today's hearing I also want to thank all of the witnesses I serve sometime as a city councilman so I know what it looks like to be mayor and what happens thank you for your service as a proud Chicago on I stand in support of our City's locally elected leaders namely mayor Brandon
▶ 5:55:30Johnson who could be back home serving the residence of Chicago but instead is here before us today preserving and protecting the sovereignty of the city of Chicago as a welcoming and Humane City at a time when immigrants are being blanketly labeled as criminal and targeted halfhazard to
▶ 5:56:01Fu the Trump musk administration's PR Orient at stunt I'm proud that since the enactment of the Illinois trust act in 2017 the state of Illinois Cook County and the City of Chicago have maintained an ongoing commitment to welcoming those in need including those that have
▶ 5:56:31endured persecution abroad and pressed their way across cross borders looking and longing for a better life for themselves and their families I think we all agree that immigration has long played an integral role in the development of American society culture and its economy in recognition of such the city of
▶ 5:57:01Chicago is holding true to its values as Mayor Johnson has stated on several occasions that Chicago and I quote will remain a welcoming City end of quotation despite recent and repeated threats and attempts of coercion from the current Administration to do otherwise likewise
▶ 5:57:33hr32 the supposed no bailout out for Sanctuary cities act that underg guards today's hearing is drafted in the same threatening intrusive and manner as the measure unfairly calls for welcoming jurisdictions to be stripped of federal funding that we just heard often goes toward supporting critical Public
▶ 5:58:03Safety initiatives and local programing needs in fact I would commend that the bill as drafted infringes on the constitution of balance of power between states and the federal government and will cause more harm than help if enacted so Mr Mayor Johnson of Chicago the windy city the city of
▶ 5:58:33the big shoulders would you share with this committee what principles and Concepts guide your thoughts and actions as you go about your task of being mayor for all of these people in Chicago thank you very much Congressman Davis for your leadership and it's good to see my neighbor here today you know look the city of Chicago we reflect and we represent the best part of America it's
▶ 5:59:03a diverse City again a city um that was um established by a black Haitian immigrant and a PanAm woman a city that has invited immigrants from around the world a city that was built by the formerly enslaved my ancestors and and it's it's a very proud moment to not only uh represent the city of Chicago um but it is my honor what we've experienced over the last 20 months since I've been in office first of all the city of Chicago is safer we have um violent crime has
▶ 5:59:33has gone down on the city of Chicago by over 20% just this year alone we've invested in housing we've invested in mental health care we've invested in youth employment uh We've invested um in our overall Community safety plan 200 more detectives to solve crime we are headed in the right direction and I'm grateful for your leadership and I will look for this body to continue to support these efforts for all of our cities thank you thank you Mr chairman and I you back thank you chair recognize is Mr Evans Colorado thank
▶ 6:00:04you Mr chairman and a ranking member for allowing me to wave on to this committee and of course thank you to the witnesses for uh for taking the time to come and have this conversation so uh Denver mayor Johnston I'm a Colorado Native grew up in and around the Denver metro area also Latino grandson of a immigrant from Mexico and I also serve for 12 years in the US Army Colorado Army National Guard uh and in the Denver metro area for another 10 years as a police officer and in fortunately as a Denver metro area police officer I've seen firsthand how
▶ 6:00:34Public Safety in Colorado and in Denver is plummeting uh when I started my law enforcement career Colorado was ranked 31st in the nation for our crime rate we were ranked third in the nation last year Denver six years ago in 2019 they didn't even make the top 50 most dangerous states excuse me dangerous cities in the country list uh this year in 2024 2025 US News and World Report ranks D Denver as the 10th most dangerous city in the country Denver has
▶ 6:01:04twice the homicide rate as San Francisco we've lost more than 7,000 coloradans to illegal drug overdose deaths since 2020 with a significant percentage of that coming from illegal drugs like Fentanyl and we know from Criminal intelligence that in the Denver Colorado area almost all of that fentanyl is being trafficked by illegal transnational criminal organizations um the halisco cartel and the caloa cartel we've seen a massive increase this is just a recent headline we've seen an increase in tusi which is
▶ 6:01:34the drug of choice of trendi aragua uh in the Denver metro area and we've seen headlines that show that overdose uh deaths in the Denver metro area remain stubbornly flat despite falling uh in in pretty much everywhere around the country in terms of violent crimes Denver's had over 6,400 violent crimes uh so that's including things like 689 sexual assaults over 1200 robberies over 4,400 aggravated assaults and again depending on which database
▶ 6:02:04you look at anywhere from 65 to 71 homicides again double the homicide rate of San Francisco so the first question to you is for those homicides do you know how many of those were committed by people illegally present in the country uh thank you Congressman uh and happy to answer that because I think you may have some bad facts I'm happy to clarify them for you uh in terms of what's happening in Denver right now as we know crime is down in Denver from last year to this year reclaiming my time Meer do you know want to answer the question you reclaiming my time do you know how many
▶ 6:02:35of those 65 to 71 homicides were committed by people illegally present in the country and I'm happy to show all of the sources for my facts we don't uh ask anyone's status at point of arrest we do not know someone's status uh and when they charged ARR thank you for the answer Mr Mayor and I'm and I'm glad you've brought that up because as you can see displayed here we actually have a training bulletin to the Denver Police Department data January of this year which pretty much says what you just said which is that uh Denver Police Department is prohibited from
▶ 6:03:05asking for any information about the national origin immigration or citizenship status of any individual uh and that's a problem because of the second uh item that we're going to display here which is the standard FBI fingerprint card uh something that I filled out for over a decade when I was a police officer which has those uh items as mandatory Fields uh location of birth and then the citizenship and so I've heard uh being a cop in the Denver metro area that police officers in Denver are not uh are being
▶ 6:03:35told not to fill out those mandatory fields in the FBI fingerprint card which could potentially indicate why you're unsure of how many of these crimes are being committed by illegal immigrants in your city so the second question is will you allow Denver police officers to fill out all of the information on an FBI fingerprint card to including asking for and recording the citizenship status thank you Congressman uh right now under city ordinance we do not ask someone's status at point of contact and we that does not Prejudice in any way our prosecution
▶ 6:04:05we believe it doesn't matter from crime they've committ them aggressiv so you're not filling out the FBI fingerprint card as required uh right now we are uh filling out information when folks arrive and none of that information prevents us from Prosecuting them to the full extent of the law which is what we do thank you Mr Mayor so not filling out the FBI fingerprint card which would directly contradict your statement that you want people who are illegally present in the country and committing crimes to be held to account for those crimes and I think that the statistics that we've gone
▶ 6:04:36through in the space of crime show why Denver is specifically cratering in their Public Safety statistics as compared to major cities around the around the country actually false uh I I can show you my statistics and as a police officer I am here to make sure that we are uplifting the voices of the victims of these crimes who are being taken advantage of in communities that provide Sanctuary to dangerous illegal criminal gangs like trendy aragua which your jail released just last week we talked about somebody back into the
▶ 6:05:06we must take care of our victims I've brought legislation the uplift act to to focus on this we're here to protect the victims and mayor I would ask you to join me in that we've already done that'll keep doing that thank you I'm recognizes Mr crank from Colorado Mr chairman oh wait wait one moment just just quick UC see um I would ask the an consent to enter the record an NPR article entitled criminal records of January 6 riers pardoned by Trump include rape domestic violence and I would also ask the correspond respondence between
▶ 6:05:36a number of us and the new attorney general Pamela Bondi be ented and the record at this point without objection so ordered the chair now chair recognize Mr crank from Colorado thank you Mr chairman thank you for allowing me to wave on this is a um a very important issue to the state of Colorado and Mayor Johnson thanks for being here I know for all of you it's been a long day appreciate you being here uh Mayor Mike Johnson uh Denver has an ordinance that prohibits City and County employees from assisting in the enforcement of Federal immigration
▶ 6:06:06laws or inquiring about a person's immigration status we've just talked about that the city of Denver also has a legal defense fund to support individuals facing deportation Denver's received more than 41,000 illegal aliens over the past two years and due to its Sanctuary status has become a popular destination for illegal aliens it's estimated that Denver spends more than $180 million a year supporting illegal immigrants
▶ 6:06:37and in rare cases where ice is able to apprehend an illegal immigrant in Denver jails Denver forbids that transfer from taking place in the jail now I just did a ride along with El Paso County Sheriffs that's my home County uh Colorado Springs just a hour away I just did a right along with them for the safety of their officers of their officers and the Ice uh officials the community and the the detain do transfers
▶ 6:07:08in the jail with El Paso County officers present and with the handcuffs on now that El Paso County method has never ever resulted in the injury of an officer during the transfer however in Denver you require that Denver Police Department release Trend araga gang members to the quote unquote uncuffed and hope that ice agents aren't able to apprehend them on their own
▶ 6:07:39that's that's the Hope let's just be honest with no Denver Police Department Officer there to assist if the situation turns violent that's irresponsible and to be clear there's no federal law that forces you to do it this way Mr Mayor this policy and the danger that it creates is wholly a result of your policy as the City and County of Denver just last week it resulted in an illegal trend araga member assaulting and biting and biting an ice
▶ 6:08:09agent because he was uncuffed and he was released by Denver to a parking lot now you're putting police officers who you're sworn to help protect as their mayor at risk to score political points and I think it's outrageous it's Unbecoming to your office and it's a danger to the people of Colorado and the citizens of Denver now we uh have this case and I know you've talked about it today Abraham Gonzalez suspected
▶ 6:08:39TDA gang member released from Denver County Jail as I mentioned due to Colorado Sanctuary policies this is a post by Ice um was forced to arrest him in public ice was a forced to arrest him in public where he assaulted officers Sanctuary policies and danger communities and law enforcement that's our post I'd ask that this be entered into the recor Mr objection so ordered um Mr Mayor yes or no would you feel safe if you were alone in a parking lot with a trend a Raga gang member
▶ 6:09:10we did not uh put a situation where someone just yes or no would you be feel safe if you were in a parking lot alone with the trender ragwa member like you make your police officers do or like you make an ice agent do yes or no there were six ice agents on the scene could you answer my question would you feel safe without any weapons would you feel reclaiming my time thank you would color Rens reclaiming my time Mr Mayor you're not going to answer the question would coloradans be safer if ice had full cooperation from Denver to remove
▶ 6:09:40trende araga gang members yes or no we currently honor those notification requests we've done it 1226 times this is the first time I've ever been aware of there being an incident which is why I reached out to ice yesterday full cooperation would be allowing them to come into the jail and doing it in the jail not in the parking lot will you change that for for the safety of your officers and those ice agents would you change them I reached out to the ice officers as soon as I heard about this I have a meeting with them in the coming weeks to talk about the procedure we have two jails 90% of the pickups are from the other jail where we've
▶ 6:10:10never had an would you change it and so I'm going to sit down with the high officers and see if there common sense you don't do a transfer in the middle of a parking lot when you can do it in a jail it it's common sense it's common sense it's been Common Sense 1226 times it's worked and so we're going to figure out what happen Mr Mayor is your highest priority as mayor the citizens uh the safety of the citizens of Denver my priority as mayor is to protect Public Safety for all of our residents last question have you apologized to the federal law enforcement agent who was assaulted by a trender AA gang member because of your failed
▶ 6:10:40leadership yes or no I reached out to the ice officers yesterday and I've asked to sit down with them to talk about this procedure and how we can align systems to make sure no other officers get injured thank you chair recognizes Mr Burleson from Missouri thank you Mr chairman from what I gathered from this hearing the term Sanctuary cities seems to mean a sanctuary only for criminals throughout this hearing we have heard countless examples of illegal immigrants with criminal histories being allowed to roam
▶ 6:11:11free in these cities and continue to commit crimes and violence against American citizens that should never have happened the bottom line is that Sanctuary policies are a violation of federal immigration laws the states when they enacted the constitution in Article 1 Section 8 Clause 4 made it very clear that it's in the purview of the federal government not the states to determine these policies States shouldn't be flaunting our laws
▶ 6:11:41that they gave us the sole responsibility to implement and yet Chicago Denver New York City and Boston are aiding and abetting in the furtherance of laws and policies that are in direct Defiance of the immigration laws that are passed by um this hearing is important for us as Congress to determine ways in which we can use our Constitutional Powers such as the power of the purse to force these and other Sanctuary cities into compliance my first question I want to
▶ 6:12:11ask um Mr buer you haven't had a lot of questions today right enough I want to ask does okay so are you aware of how much it costs the American taxpayer per illegal immigrant in the United States roughly not on a per capita basis no okay the the budget committee has determined it's about almost about 9 ,000 in net loss per tax or per illegal immigrant it to that that's definitely not
▶ 6:12:41correct okay you can you can question but that's the group that did the research so let me ask you this does Support subsidizing Tech using taxpayer prog creating taxpayer programs to subsidize other people's health care benefits no we don't okay does K support using taxpayer dollars to support people staying in in hotels definitely not okay just wanted to get that cleared up because I was worried where KO stood um Mr
▶ 6:13:11Adams you stated that the migrant crisis wait first I want to ask this question from everybody on the on the um uh I I is there a difference between if there's a difference between the ice detainer and a criminal warrant which one would you honor I'm not I'm sure I understand the question you said there's a difference between a ice detainer and a criminal warrant yes we would always honor an ice detainer that comes with a Judicial warrant uh
▶ 6:13:41that is what the law calls for in the city okay and do you concur is that what you would do we always support our criminal warrants with ice requests yes okay Mr Johnson with a Criminal warrant uh we do our local police department with a Criminal warrant we'll collaborate and cooperate with federal agents and Mrs woo when there's a criminal warrant from any agency Boston police enforce it okay um Mr Johnson
▶ 6:14:12I I'm I'm concerned about um about what's happening obviously my neighboring state of Illinois but you said that you you're prepared let's see you said that you oppose um proposals to eliminate Sanctuary protections for illegal immigrants that are convicted of serious crimes um why do you think it's important to protect even violent criminals we don't we do do not protect violent criminals in fact my top priority is to make sure that the people of Chicago are safe our local law enforcement work
▶ 6:14:42hard every single day to ensure that that's why I invested in more detectives so that we can actually solve crime and as a result of the work that I've done under my leadership crime has gone down since I've been mayor M Mrs woo you've said multiple times you made it very clear that you're a City knowing that there is a cost to the to the taxpayer what what is what's the acceptable number is there is there any acceptable or reasonable limit that you would that you would consider before before
▶ 6:15:13your city is overrun we are a city that is the safest in the country because everyone feels connected to city services everyone can call there's no you have no answer there's no capacity that's too much Congressman respectfully I'm the mayor of Boston I don't get to decide who comes into our country and where they go after that our job is to keep people fed and healthy and safe when they arrive in our city and we do that in order to make sure that everyone across our community is safe
▶ 6:15:43resources are strained but I would ask you to please do your job and be part of passing bipartisan legislation that would allow us to do we did we did we passed hr2 but on what we've made it what been made very clear is that we don't need to pass laws all we need is a new president uh my time has expired gentlemen expired uh they've called for votes but we have one last question Mr herd from Colorado thank you very much Mr chairman H good afternoon
▶ 6:16:13uh Mayor Johnson it's nice to see you thanks for coming um I have a question about Denver's policies that um I fear made it a magnet for migrants and have drawn tens of thousands to Denver in a short amount of time given the strain that's being placed on City resources can you is is there a limit and this might be similar to a question that was just asked before if another wave of arrivals begins does Denver have a contingency plan or is the commitment to being
▶ 6:16:43a a sanctuary City truly open-ended no matter how many come uh thank you congressman and um we have adjusted our policies when we were facing some of the fiscal crisis around this we were hoping for the Senate bipartisan immigration Bill to pass which would have provided some resources to Interior cities when that didn't we had to make adjustments and so we what we've done now is we've really focused on connecting people to work so those folks that arrive we think the most important thing is for them to be able to work and support themselves pay their own taxes pay their own rent and so we've
▶ 6:17:13run work authorization clinics to help people get legal work authorization if this body could help us accelerate the rate of work authorization we would not need to spend any public resources at all because folks want jobs they could support themselves so that's been our real Focus the more folks we work authorized we've been able to then uh need to provide fewer resources around Housing Shelter food Etc are you are you concerned that Denver could be reaching a Breaking Point soon uh thank you Congressman um we actually are seeing a dramatic drops in the rivals since June
▶ 6:17:44of 2024 so we are not in a moment of Crisis right now we don't have migrant encampments we've closed all of our shelters we've actually dropped our spending on migrant supports by 90% from 2024 to 2025 so our expenditures are down dramatically and we' love to see it stay that way how about uh my concern about you know incentivizing certain actions can do you do you have any concrete evidence that Sanctuary policies have not made Denver more vulnerable to Crime uh thank you Congressman
▶ 6:18:14we do have concrete evidence that even as 42,000 newcomers have arrived in the city over the last 18 months crime has gone down in Denver and so uh shootings are down 24% homicide is down 17% auto theft is down almost 30% so we've seen all those major drivers go down uh at the same time we've had new folks arrive and that's because of the sanctuary policies or in spite of them or what would those numbers be absent the policies in Denver that incentivize these behaviors thank you
▶ 6:18:45Congressman we see them as unrelated uh we are continuing to make a strong stand on Public Safety we're continuing to find ways to integrate folks who have arrived on our city in the middle of the winter with no closeth or support and we've been able to do both we've also made historic reductions in homelessness at the same time that we were facing this I declar of Emergency on on homelessness because that was our top priority and we've become the largest big city America to end the cycle of Street homelessness for veterans so that's been uh equal part of our focus at the same time so just so I'm clearing your testimony you don't believe that there's any evidence that the city of Denver's
▶ 6:19:15policies have made Denver more vulnerable to Crime uh no sir I do not see any evidence that it has okay uh if violent criminals are exploiting these protections are you willing to reconsider aspects of the city's policies to prioritize Public Safety thank you sir we are very aggressively pursuing violent criminals right now in fact we're doing it in collaboration with many federal agencies we have a raven task force we launched which has been focused on disrupting gang activity that's why we've been so successful in managing and reducing the presence of
▶ 6:19:45TDA in the city it's how we helped uh reduce the presence of MS13 so we have aggressive actions going in partner with federal agents and that's working one of the concerns that I've heard U mayor Johnston in western Colorado in Colorado thirdd Congressional District and also in Southern Colorado is that um there are illegal immig here that are coming to or that are in Denver that are then relocating to western and southern Colorado are you aware or can you confirm that the
▶ 6:20:15illegal migrants that are in Denver that were in Denver have stayed in your city and not traveled to other parts of the state thank you sir obviously as you know when folks arrive to Denver whether they come from Carbondale or Grand Junction or Chicago we don't track where they go it's a free country if they choose to move to Lakewood or to move moved to peblo we wouldn't know uh we just provide the emergency services to make sure they're not freezing on the streets and so that's our Focus but we don't track anyone's long-term trajectory whether they're U native born
▶ 6:20:45or an immigrant would it surprise you if there were individuals that were leaving Denver that were relocating to other parts of Colorado uh it wouldn't surprise me that folks were moving in the same way it doesn't surprise us that folks are constantly relocating to Denver from other parts of the country as well okay thank you very much Mayor Johnson uh Mr chairman I see my time has almost expired and I yield the back well thank you very much and uh that's it in closing I want to thank our Witnesses for being here today and believe it or not this is the best behave this committee has been
▶ 6:21:15all Congress so I want to uh compliment my ranking member uh Mr Mr Conley and again thank you for your testimony today I look forward to further discussion uh I now with that and without objection all members have five legislative days Within which to submit materials and additional written questions for the witnesses which will be forwarded to the witnesses if there's no further Business Without objection the committee stands
▶ 6:22:33e e